PKL 9: Who tops Khel Now's Power Rankings after Phase 1?

Young players have made their mark on the season so far.

For every Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) game this season, our respective correspondents and editors rank their three best-performing players from the match in order. The player ranked at the top of the list is awarded five points. The player finishing second earns three points, whereas the one at the bottom (third place) is given one point.

Such points are carried forward for every player involved in the league, once he’s chosen by our team. Eventually, the total number of points that they accumulate will decide their final position on the leaderboard at the end of the PKL season 9. The Khel Now Power Rankings will be published in a series of articles, as we have divided PKL 9 into equal phases of 22 games each for the same. This article includes the rankings for the first 22 matches of PKL 9.

10. Sunil Kumar- 6 points

Sunil Kumar has been one of the pillars in the defence of the Jaipur Pink Panthers. He scored a total of 15 tackle points this PKL season and eight of them came in a single match. He also holds the fourth position in the number of successful tackles (13). After captaining Gujarat Titans for the past few seasons he is putting all his experience this season and is helping new players like Abhishek to perform on the big stage.

9. Guman Singh - 6 points

Guman Singh started the season on a slower note but has been influential in the last few matches for U Mumba scoring a super 10. He was brought for a hefty price in the auction this season and is slowly showing up with his performance and his importance to the raiding department.

8. Ashu Singh - 6 points

Ashu in the presence of Sumit and Nitesh Kumar has put up brilliant performances consistently. He does not have a high 5 but has scored four points twice and has been quite consistent in the cover position.   

7. Arjun Deshwal - 6 points

Arjun Deshwal has scored 43 raid points in four matches and occupies the 5th spot in the raiders list. He has led the team from the front getting support from Rahul Chaudhari, Ajith Kumar and Bhavani Rajput.

6. Manjeet - 9 points

Manjeet from Dabang Delhi KC has been one of the standout performers in PKL 9 scoring 27 raid points in four matches. He has taken up the role of secondary raider in the absence of Vijay Malik and has played his role to perfection helping Naveen Kumar in reviving and scoring points regularly. 

5. Surender Gill - 10 points

Surender Gill has scored 47 raid points in four points out of which he scored 21 points in a single match. Like last season he has led UP Yoddha from the front in the raiding department along with Pardeep Narwal. 

4. Rakesh - 11 points

Rakesh from Gujarat Giants has been the primary raider in the presence of experienced captain Chandran Ranjith scoring 44 points in four matches. He has been scoring points consistently in all the matches. 

3. Aslam Inamdar - 11 points

The youngster from Puneri Paltan has been in tremendous form in the absence of the Iranian duo of Fazel Athrachali and Mohammed Nabibaksh. He has scored four Super 10s scoring 46 raid points in four matches. He has been lethal in taking bonus points whenever available.

2. Maninder Singh - 13 points

The 32-year-old raider from Bengal Warriors has scored 41 raid points but had a slow start to the season. After the slow start, he picked up the pace and has led the team scoring majority of the raid points getting good support from Shrikant Jadhav and Deepak Hooda. 

1. Naveen Kumar - 18 points

“Naveen Express” is the first raider to cross the 50 points barrier in PKL 9 and has continued from where he left in the previous season. This season he has taken the additional role of captainship which has not hampered his performance and is scoring points consistently.