PKL 2018: Can Bengaluru Bulls' defence again make a mark vs Tamil Thalaivas

In Match 19 of VIVO Pro Kabaddi League (PKL 2018) season six, Ajay Thakur’s Tamil Thalaivas will take on Bengaluru Bulls at Motilal Nehru School of sports in RAI, Sonepat. In the 4 matches played between the two sides, Bengaluru Bulls came victorious in 3 while one match goes in favour of Tamil Thalaivas. This will be the second meeting between these two teams in PKL 6. Their first meeting ended in a 48-37 victory for the Bulls in the Chennai leg. In that match, Pawan Sehrawat makes a record scoring 17 raid points in first half and finished with 20 raid points. Tamil Thalaivas Ajay Thakur also scored 19 raid points with a strike rate of 76 but failed to see his side to victory. A major difference in the game came in defense as Bengaluru scored 12 tackle points courtesy to Ashish Kumar’s High 5 (7 tackle pts), which was more than double of Tamil’s 5 tackle points in the game.

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Tamil Thalaivas Team News
 
Tamil Thalaivas made an excellent start to their Pro Kabaddi 2018 campaign as they thrashed the defending champions Patna Pirates in the tournament opener. But after that, they failed to win any match and ended their home leg with a loss against Bengal Warriors. Besides Ajay Thakur and Athul MS, the Thalaivas have not had consistent contributions from any other raider. Surjeet Singh scored 7 raid points in the first game, which they won against Patna Pirates, but in the second game scored only 1 raid point. He did not feature in their other three games. The veteran Jasvir Singh has also not produced enough raid points. He was the top raider in the Thalaivas’ last match against Bengal Warriors, but he only scored 6 raid points. He has played in 4 of their 5 matches, but almost 50% of his raids have been empty raids in PKL 2018. Also, Tamil Thalaivas’ defensive combination has been a worry for the team. In their last two matches, against Bengaluru Bulls and Bengal Warriors, the failure of the defense led to the Thalaivas losing by big margins. Thalaivas have scored only 40 tackle points from their 5 games with Manjeet Chhillar and Amit Hooda contributing 68% of those points (27/40).

 
Bengaluru Bulls Team news
 
Bengaluru Bulls success in their only match of Pro Kabaddi 2018 goes to their cover crucial combination. Bengaluru Bulls have held on to their star left cover from PKL 5, Mahender Singh. He was the 9^th best defender in PKL Season 5 and the only left cover in the top 10 defenders list, scoring 57 tackle points from 22 matches. In the Bulls’ first match vs Tamil Thalaivas, Mahender gave an excellent performance along with Ashish Sangwan. Mahender Singh has a very good record against Thalaivas lead raider Ajay Thakur – he has a 71% success rate against Ajay Thakur (5/7) in PKL. One of the key moments of the first meeting between these two teams in PKL 6 was when Mahender Singh and Ashish Kumar effected a Super Tackle on Ajay Thakur as Thalaivas were looking for an All Out in the 15th minute of the game. That changed the momentum of the match and the Bulls went on to get the first All Out. However, the duo will need the support from corners, who managed to score just 1 tackle point collectively in the first game.

 
Match 19: Bengaluru Bulls vs Tamil Thalaivas match details and live streaming info
 
Date: October 17, Wednesday
 
Time: 8:00 pm (IST)
 
Venue: Motilal Nehru School of Sports in RAI, Sonepat
 
Bengaluru Bulls vs Tamil Thalaivas match will be broadcast on Star Sports 2, Star Sports 2 HD in English and Star Sports 1 Hindi and Star Sports 1 HD Hindi in Hindi.
 
Bengaluru Bulls vs Tamil Thalaivas: Probable 7

Tamil Thalaivas	vs	Bengaluru Bulls
Amit Hooda	Right Corner	Jasmer Gulia
Ajay Thakur ©	Right In	Kashiling Adake
Darshan J	Right Cover	Ashish Kumar
Jasvir Singh	Center	Rohit Kumar ©
Manjeet Chhillar	Left Cover	Mahender Singh
Athul MS	Left In	Pawan Sehrawat
Sunil	Left Corner	Jawahar Vivek