PKL 2018: Can Nitin Tomar turn Puneri Paltan's fortune in season six?

Puneri Paltan have crushed U Mumba in Pro Kabaddi League season 5 as they defeated the Mumbai based team in all the three matches.

In Match 2 of Vivo Pro Kabaddi League (PKL 2018) season six, U Mumba will take on Puneri Paltan at Jawaharlal Nehru indoor Stadium in Chennai. Puneri Paltan have crushed U Mumba in PKL season 5 as they defeated the Mumbai based team in all the three matches. But in overall record, U Mumba leads the head to head battle with 7 wins in 11 games. Today’s match will be a battle of PKL’s top corner combinations as both the teams have a combination of the most successful defenders in PKL history in Fazel Atrachali and Dharamaraj Cheralathan for U Mumba and Sandeep Narwal and Girish Ernak for Puneri Paltan. In Overall Pro Kabaddi League history, all 4 of them are in the top 11 defenders. 

To check Pro Kabaddi League season 6 (PKL 2018) Day 1 Live updates click here

Puneri Paltan Team news

Puneri Paltan has become one of the most consistent teams in Pro Kabaddi League, making it to the playoffs in each of the last 3 seasons. However, they haven’t been able to take that final leap and win the title. In the PKL auctions 2018, Nitin Tomar was the joint 3rd most expensive buy in the auction and Pune team management bank upon him to turn the fortune of the team. Nitin was the costliest buy in the auction for season 4 and put in a stellar performance for U.P Yoddha, ending the season as the 8th highest in raid points. However, Nitin Tomar has struggled to perform against U Mumba. His average raid points and raid strike rate of 4.4 and 39 respectively against Mumbai is his worst against sides he has played a minimum of five times. 

U Mumba team news

U Mumba are coming into the Pro Kabaddi League season 6 without their star raider, Anup Kumar, who was the lead raider and captain of the team in last 5 seasons. Anup Kumar has been one of the most successful captains in PKL history leading U Mumba to 3 finals and 1 title in their five seasons. To fill the vacuum, U Mumba brought in new reinforcements in the form of Abolfazl Maghsodlou, Vinod Kumar, Rohit Baliyan and R. Sriram. All of them performed their roles well as second and third raiders in season 5 but not one of them crossed the 10-raid points mark. Except Rohit Baliyan (Raid SR 39), all of the raiders they brought in had a raid strike rate of at least 40 in PKL 5. Despite their decent strike rate, none of their raiders averaged more than 5 points per game in PKL 5 and it is yet to be seen if they are enough to compensate for the losses of Anup Kumar and Kashiling Adake.

Match 2: U Mumba vs Puneri Paltan match details and live streaming info

Date: 7th October 2018, Sunday

Time: 9:00 pm (IST)

Venue: Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, Chennai

U Mumba vs Puneri Paltan match will be broadcasted on Star Sports, Star Sports 2 HD in English Commentary and Star Sports 1 Hindi and Star Sports 1 HD Hindi in Hindi Commentary.

U Mumba vs Puneri Paltan: Starting probable seven

Puneri Paltan: Sandeep Narwal (Right Corner), GB More (Right in), Ravi Kumar (Right cover), Nitin Tomar (Center), Vinod Kumar (left Cover), Rajesh Mondal (Left in), Girish Ernak (Left corner)

U Mumba: D Cheralathan (Right Corner), Rohit Baliyan (Right in), Surender Singh (Right cover), Abolfazl Maghsodlou (Center), Rohit Rana (Leff Cover), Siddhartha Desai (Left in), Fazel Atrachali (Left Corner)