PKL 2018: Patna Pirates need to improve defence to avoid successive defeats

Patna Pirates' defense and support raider have not performed in their home leg so far and it seems today's high voltage clash will be between superstar Pardeep Narwal and Telugu Titans

In Match 40 of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL 2018) season six, Pardeep Narwal’s Patna Pirates will look to enhance their performance when they meet Telugu Titans, who defeated Patna in a last-minute thriller earlier in PKL 2018. Patna Pirates are suffering due to lack of fire power in support raiders — Deepak Narwal, Manjeet, Vijay. Manjeet looked impressive in a few matches but failed to perform in crunch situations. In the 13 matches played between Patna Pirates and Telugu Titans, the latter has won 7 matches. After they were tied at 6-6, Telugu Titans took the lead by winning their first meeting at PKL-6 35-31. Pardeep Narwal was held to just 5 raid points in this match by Titans’ brilliant defence. That was the only game Pardeep failed to score a Super 10 in Pro Kabaddi 2018. Patna Pirates’ defence and support raider have not performed in their home leg so far and it seems today’s high voltage clash will be between superstar Pardeep Narwal and Telugu Titans.

To check, Pro Kabaddi league (PKL 2018) season six, Day 20 Highlights, CLICK HERE
 
Patna Pirates' poor defence
 
Patna Pirates are the worst team in PKL 6 in terms of average tackle points. Their tackle strike rate is also the worse, along with Haryana. Pardeep Narwal has scored a SUPER 10 in 6 out of 7 matches so far, despite which Patna have won only 3 of those matches. Prior to PKL 2018, this had happened only 6 times across three seasons in the 29 instances where Pardeep Narwal picked up a SUPER 10 (from PKL 3 to PKL 5). The Patna defence has been leaking points with a high percentage of failed tackles. On average they fail with 72% of their tackles. Patna’s best defensive performance, in fact, came against Telugu Titans in their first meeting where they had only 11 failed tackles (58% failure rate). Patna will be hoping they can repeat such a performance again on Tuesday to support their raiders a bit better (Patna’s average raid points per game is 23.3 which is third-best in PKL 6).

Patna Failed Tackles - PKL 2018
Match No.	Opponent	Tackles	Failed Tackles	Failed Tackles %
1	Tamil Thalaivas	23	21	91%
9	UP Yoddha	29	19	66%
15	UP Yoddha	28	22	79%
23	Telugu Titans	19	11	58%
33	Jaipur Pink Panthers	28	21	75%
36	U Mumba	24	17	71%
38	Haryana Steelers	24	16	67%

 

 
Check Pro Kabaddi League (PKL 2018) points table here 

Pardeep Narwal vs Telugu Titans defence
 
When Patna Pirates played Telugu Titans earlier this season, the Titans’ corner combination of Abozar Mighani and Vishal Bhardwaj put in a stupendous performance to ensure that Pardeep Narwal scored only 5 raid points in the game. In that match, Pardeep Narwal was tackled by Abozar Mighani thrice and by Vishal Bhardwaj twice. Pardeep Narwal has had trouble against some of the top right corner defenders in PKL 6. Prior to the match against Jaipur Pink Panthers, he had a combined 3-9 record against them. But that performance by Telugu Titans has brought about a change in Pardeep Narwal’s raiding as he was tackled more towards left-corner instead of right corner in last 3 games. Pardeep is spending less time in front of the right corner defender and attacking the opposite corner. What has been clear in the last 3 matches is Pardeep Narwal’s conscious effort to stay away from the opposition’s right corners. Vishal Bhardwaj will likely have a greater role to play. Talking about Telugu Titans’ defence, they are the best defensive side of the season with an average of 12.6 tackle points per game. However, Abozar didn’t feature in their previous game against U Mumba and Telugu delivered their worst defensive performance of the season by scoring just 6 tackle points. Abozar’s average of 4.5 is the best by any defender in PKL 2018. This battle between the Titans corners and Pardeep Narwal will have a huge impact on the game.

Abozar Mighani	Telugu Corners	Vishal Bhardwaj
4	Matches	5
18	Tackle Points	18
3	High 5s	1
4.5	Avg Tackle Points	3.6
82	Tackle Strike Rate	64

 

 
Pardeep Narwal vs Rahul Chaudhari: The battle of top two raiders of Pro Kabaddi League
 
The two top raiders of Pro Kabaddi will face off against each other - Pardeep Narwal and Rahul Chaudhari. They are the two leading raid point scorers in the history of PKL – Pardeep Narwal became the all-time leading raid point scorer for the first time in his last game, surpassing Rahul Chaudhari. He currently has 713 raid points. Rahul Chaudhari has now been pushed to second spot for the first time in PKL history. These two raiders also hold the record for most career Super 10s in PKL – Pardeep Narwal has 35 and Rahul Chaudhari has 32. Pardeep Narwal is the third-leading raid point scorer in PKL 6 with 88 raid points from 7 games. He has failed to score a Super 10 in only one game so far, against Telugu Titans. In comparison, Rahul Chaudhari has been well below his best in PKL 6. He has only 34 raid points from his 5 matches without a single Super 10. This is Rahul’s longest wait for a Super 10 in any season.  Pardeep Narwal (PAT) has been very good versus Telugu Titans averaging 11.7 raid points a game at a strike rate of 69. This is his second-best raid SR against any team. Rahul Chaudhari averages 8.8 raid points a game against Patna and has a much lower strike rate of 50.
 

Raider Head to Head
Pardeep Narwal (Patna)		Player Name	Rahul Chaudhari (Hyderabad)
PKL 2018	Overall	Season	PKL 2018	Overall
7	71	Matches	5	84
88	713	Raid Points	34	700
6	35	Super 10s	0	32
12.5	10.0	Avg Raid Points	6.7	8.3
59	58	SR	40	48