PKL 2019, Match 6 preview: All eyes will be on Puneri Paltan's Nitin Tomar

In Match 6 of VIVO Pro Kabaddi League, PKL 2019, Puneri Paltan will take on Haryana Steelers at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium, Hyderabad, on Day 3 of Pro Kabaddi 2019. It will be a battle between friends turn rivals as Anup Kumar and Rakesh Kumar square off as head coaches in their first match as coach. They were part of Pro Kabaddi League and now make their debuts as coach. Anup Kumar, who had an illustrious career with U Mumba (PKL 1 to PKL 5) and finished his career with Jaipur Pink Panthers last season, will be the coach of Puneri Paltan. Rakesh Kumar (PKL 1 to PKL 5) who played for 3 different teams will be the coach of Haryana Steelers. Talking about the Puneri Paltan raiding unit, in Pro Kabaddi 2019, Nitin Tomar will boost Pune after he got injured last season.

CHECK DAY 3 (Mumbai vs Jaipur and Steelers vs Paltan) LIVE SCORE and MATCH UPDATES HERE

Check Pro Kabaddi schedule and points table here
 
Player battle: Defender Surjeet-Girish vs Raiders Vikas-Prashanth
 
Defence combo of Surjeet-Girish
 
Puneri Paltan have made a big addition to their team with the purchase of cover defender Surjeet Singh. He would look to pair up with Girish Ernak in the defensive setup. Girish Ernak was a regular Cover last season. He scored 56 tackle points at a strike rate of 50. He was the only defender from Pune to cross 50-plus tackle points in PKL 2018. Similarly, Surjeet has been the lead defender for Bengal Warriors in the last 2 seasons and last year scored 54 tackle points. With both Girish Ernak and Surjeet Singh in their team, Pune now possess two defenders who are in the top 10 of leading tackle point scorers in PKL history – Girish (228 – 6th) and Surjeet (215 – 9th).
 
Raider combo of Vikas-Prashanth
 
Haryana Steelers have a new look raiding duo of Vikas Kandola, their star from last year, and Prashanth Kumar Rai, who was UP Yoddha’s top raider in PKL 2019. Haryana have retained Vikas Kandola who finished Pro Kabaddi 2018 as their top raider with 172 raid points. PKL 6 was his career-best season. Prashanth Kumar Rai was with UP Yoddha and emerged as their top scoring raider with 144 raid points. Both Vikas and Prashanth maintained a raid point average greater than 7 in PKL 6 and had a raid strike rate of more than 50. Prashanth and Vikas were among the top Bonus Point scorers last season, finishing 1st and 3rd respectively.
 
Puneri Paltan vs Haryana Steelers head to head

Head to head, Puneri Paltan have an advantage as they won five out of six matches while Haryana Steelers won only one.  Pune won all of their encounters in PKL 6. Two of these wins were by a margin of more than 10.

Match No.	Puneri Paltan	Haryana Steelers	Result
PKL 6, Match 85	35	33	Pune won by 2 points
PKL 6, Match16	45	27	Pune won by 18 points
PKL 6, Match 3	34	22	Pune won by 12 points
PKL 5, Match 128	27	31	Haryana won by 4 points
PKL 5, Match 84	37	25	Pune won by 12 points
PKL 5, Match 76	38	22	Pune won by 16 points

 

Here is the starting seven of both the teams: 

Puneri Paltan	Vs	Haryana Steelers
Shubham Shinde	Right Corner	Dharmaraj Cheralathan ©
Darshan Kadian	Right In	Prashanth Kumar Rai
Surjeet Singh ©	Right Cover	Ravi Kumar
Nitin Tomar	Center	Vikas Kandola
Girish Ernak	Left Cover	Parveen
Manjeet	Left In	Naveen
Sagar Krishna	Left Corner	Kuldeep Singh