Bengaluru Bulls Vs. Haryana Steelers
Match number 68 of Pro Kabaddi League season 9 featured a high pressure game between Bengaluru Bulls and Haryana Steelers. Both the teams had only one motive and that was to elevate themselves in the points table.
Just like every other Pro Kabaddi League contest, this one too unsurprisingly went down the wire. The Bulls in the end won the match by a deficit of 3 points. The habit of substantial contribution from at least 5-6 players could well may prove to be yet another season charging for the title for Bengaluru Bulls.
Shockingly none of the Bulls Raider completed a Super 10 but Neeraj Narwal was the closest to it by scoring 9 Raid points. Bharat and Vikash Kandola gathered 8 more raid points as they brought back 4 points each.
Rest of the contributions came from the defensive department as every Bengaluru defender scored at least 2 tackle points.
Left cover Mahender Singh led from the front and trapped 5 tackle points, Saurabh nandal and Aman won 3 tackle points each while Right cover Mayur Kadam managed to win 2 tackle points as well.
Meanwhile, Steelers had a better Raid strike rate of 56.1% as compared to Bulls’ 39.02%. Manjeet Dahiya and Meetu Sharma were the hottest Haryana players as both gathered 18 Raid points with the former grabbing Super 10 this season.
On the defensive front it looked bleak as Haryana’s tackle success rate of 38.% indicates a lot of work is needed to be done.
Final score line at the end of full time was 36-33.
Tamil Thalaivas Vs. Puneri Paltan
Second match of day 28 saw Thalaivas crash out against Puneri by a margin of just a single point.
Both the sides produced unbelievable performances and young players led from the front. Thalaivas’ Narender Kandola who is already having a fantastic debut season added another Super 10 to his tally but for a losing cause.
Akash Shinde from the other end also ended with 10 Raid points and his Super 10 proved to be decisive towards his side’s win.
Another problem arising for Thalaivas is that no Raider is turning up for the occasion other than Narender. Ajinkya Pawar was expected to fill the shoes of Pawan but Ajinkya has failed to do so. He scored 5 raid points.
However, Thalaivas defended really well and it reflected on their tackle success rate of 53.57%.
Puneri Paltan on the other hand had Aslam Inamdar (6 Raid points) and Mohit Goyat (3 raid points) support Akash Shinde in the offensive front. Captain Fazel Atrachali puzzled opposition raiders yet again as he scored 5 tackle points.
He received the support of other defenders like Abhinesh Nadarajan, Sanket Sawant, Gaurav Khatri and Sombir as all four of them won 2 tackle points.
Final score line at the end of 40 minutes was 34-35.
