So, in the last article, we began an article series where we describe the journey to the play-offs for each of the teams who have qualified. We started with Dabang Delhi K.C. and we will now move on to Jaipur Pink Panthers.
Jaipur Pink Panthers were the winners of the first season of PKL, where they had beaten U Mumba in the finals. After that season, they have played final only once till now against Patna Pirates in Season-4 where they lost to them. This season Jaipur team has been in top form and looks well set to lift that trophy after a long wait of almost 9-10 years.
The Jaipur team owned by Bollywood star Mr. Abhishek Bachchan, has always been entertaining all of us in the PKL but hasn’t performed up to the mark in past 3-4 seasons. This time around they retained a good set of players in Arjun Deshwal, their top raider, Sahul Kumar and some young players and groomed them for the season.
In the auction, they got V. Ajith Kumar to support Arjun as the second raider and Sunil Kumar in defense to partner Sahul. They announced Sunil Kumar as their captain as he is a very experienced player and has played for different franchises in the Pro Kabaddi League.
Jaipur lost their first match of the season against U.P. Yoddhas by a close margin of only two points. After the first match, their team got together as a group and won 5 matches continuously where they completely outplayed their opponents.
Team’s main raider, Arjun Deshwal, showed everyone that why he was given the opportunity of being the lead raider and he did not disappoint. Their defense was also holding themselves pretty well and not leaking any extra points which is a very important aspect of Kabaddi.
After these six matches, they lost 3 consecutive matches and were in deep waters. The defense which was performing well in the past matches, leaked points in these three and the team suffered because of it. The other reason for defeat was the lack of performance of second raider whenever Arjun was out of the mat. They finally clicked well and won two close matches against Dabang Delhi and U Mumba.
After 11 matches, they had won 7 and lost 4 and were among the top-3 on the Points Table. Everyone was sensing a feeling of determination among the Jaipur camp and they were all set to go that extra mile this year. They won three out of their next five matches where they lost to Patna Pirates (30-37) and PuneriPaltan (32-39).
They were almost certain of a place in the play-offs but every team wants to finish in the top-2 where you get an advantage of directly playing the Semi-final and not the Eliminator. They finished the season on a high note by winning five out of their last six matches and drawing the final one against Gujarat Fortune Giants (51-51).
The main positive for them this season has been Arjun Deshwal, who has performed in every match for them and is leading the top raiders chart so far. Jaipur have finished the league stage with 82 points out of 22 matches, where they won 15, lost 6 and tied 1.
This year they look well set and determined to repeat their first season heroics with all of their players in top form. They will face the winner of Eliminator 1 between Dabang Delhi and Bengaluru Bulls in Semi-Final 1 on 15th December, 2022.
