Pro Kabaddi League Season 9 : Bengaluru Bulls and Tamil Thalaivas seal their spot at the Semi-finals

Pro Kabaddi League Season 9 Bengaluru Bulls and Tamil Thalaivas seal their spot at the Semi-finals

Pro Kabaddi League season 9 is just 3 matches away from completion as the Semi-finals takes place tomorrow. Last night Bengaluru Bulls and Tamil Thalaivas won their respective Eliminator matches against Dabang Delhi K.C and UP Yoddhas to qualify for the Semis.

While the top two teams – Jaipur Pink Panthers and Puneri Paltan now know whom they will face to reach the Final. Jaipur are all set to square off against Bengaluru and Puneri will face Tamil Thalaivas tomorrow.

But before the Semi-finals, let’s take a look at how things went last night during both of the Eliminator games.

Bengaluru Bulls Vs. Dabang Delhi K.C

Eliminator Number 1 of PKL 9 featured 3rd placed Bengaluru Bulls and 6th placed season 8 champions Dabang Delhi K.C. Bengaluru’s resilience and team performance proved to be too much for the defending champions as Bulls registered a victory by a heavy margin of 32 points.

This was one of the most one sided match of season 9 as Bulls totally bamboozled Delhi’s defense. From the defending champions’ perspective, the loss was inevitable. Despite a flying start to their season, Delhi failed to retain their form and composure and finished 6th in the League phase.

Last night, their defense was exposed yet again as they could only maintain a tackle success rate of 10.34%. While, the Bulls on the other hand took full advantage of it. The raiding department led by Bharat counted for 30 raid points combined.

Vikash Kandola and Bharat scored Super 10s and ended the night with 13 and 15 raid points respectively. Although Neeraj Narwal could only grab 2 raid points but their defense also stood up for the occasion. As we have often talked about how clinical Bengaluru has been this season, they showed every reason why they should be classified as title contenders.

Their solidity in defense was evident in their tackle success rate of 68%. 2 defenders completed Super 5s – Ponparthiban Subramanian (7 tackle points) and Saurabh Nandal (5 tackle points). Elsewhere, captain Mahender Singh and Aman collected 3 and 2 tackle points each.

Final score line at the end of full time was 56-24.

UP Yoddhas Vs Tamil Thalaivas

Second Eliminator match of the day saw UP Yoddhas clash against Tamil Thalaivas in order to secure a Semi-final berth against Puneri Paltan. It was a nail biting fixture that went down the wire and both the teams equally deserved to win the match.

This match actually ended in a draw of 36-36 and a tie breaker decided the result of the match. Ajinkya Pawar’s last pointless raid took the match for a tie breaker where Thalaivas capitalized. In the regulation time of 40 minutes, 3 raiders scored Super 10s.

From UP Yoddhas, Captain Pardeep Narwal brought back 10 raid points and other than him Surinder Gill scored 8 raid points for the draw. Their defense was not up to the mark against Tamil Thalaivas as UP maintained a tackle success rate of 33.33% in front of their opponents’ 42.31%.

Sumit was UP’s highest scoring defender as he secured himself a Super 5. Meanwhile, Thalaivas had 2 raiders scoring Super 10s. Narender Kandola as usual was at it again as he ended the match with 13 raid points to his name. Captain Ajinkya Pawar also joined forces and he scored a crucial Super 10.

In terms of defense, nobody scored Super 5 but they had small contributions from almost every defender. M. Abhishek and Arpit Saroha scored 1 tackle point each. Mohit finished the night with 2 tackle points while Sahil Gulia and Himanshu scored 3 raid points each.

At the end of full time the scoreline was 36-36 and it was time for the tie breaker. The rules were simple, both the teams could go for only 5 raids and the team to score more points in those 5 raids wins the affair.

1st Raid – Thalaivas’ Himanshu was the first go for the raid but UP’s defense tackled him to take the lead.

2nd Raid – Pardeep Narwal goes for the following raid but he also gets tackled and the scores got equal. (1-1)

3rd Raid – Thalaivas take the lead by 2-1.

4th Raid – Sandeep Narwal goes for the raid and made the scoreline 2-2.

5th Raid – Narender Kandola brought back a bonus point to take Thalaivas ahead by 2-3

6th Raid – UP’s Rohit Tomar went for the raid but was caught by an assertive Thalaivas defense. 2-4.

7th Raid – Thalaivas Captain Ajinkya Pawar came back with another bonus point to extend their lead by 3 points and made it 2-5.

8th Raid – With one more raid to go, UP Yoddhas cut the gap by 2 points and made it 3-5.

9th Raid – Himanshu took Thalaivas final raid and won a bonus point to make it 3-6.

10th Raid – Despite winning their last raid UP have been knocked out from the Eliminators as Tamil Thalaivas sealed their spot at the Semi-final and they will meet Puneri Paltan tomorrow night.

Also Read – Top 10 Raiders of Pro Kabaddi League Season 9