With two out of two wins under their belt,a highly confident Puneri Paltan squad will take on defending champions Patna Pirates for match number 6 of Star Sports Pro Kabaddi League season 4. In the absence of Sandeep Narwal, Rohit Kumar and Gurvinder Singh, the Pirates will have to sail smooth to ensure they keep the raging Paltan at bay.
The Live Streaming for the game between Puneri Paltan and U Mumba will be available on starsports.com from 21:00 hours IST. The match will be telecasted live from DOME @ NSCI SVP Stadium, Mumbai, and will be aired on Star Sports 2 (HD)/Star Sports 2 in English and Star Sports 3 /Star Sports 3 (HD) in Hindi.
Having never won the Maharashtrian derby prior to this season, the Paltan made full use of Mumbai’s lapses and went through the toothless U-Mumba defence like a knife through butter in their last game. Ajay Thakur was the most impressive of the lot, baffling U-Mumba en route to inflicting three super raids and one all-out. Manjeet Chhillar played perfect foil to the towering Ajay, picking up points at free will, himself inflicting an all-out.
With the NSCI Stadium presenting itself as a cauldron of noise, Pune ensured that they never let go of the match, taking along with them a gigantic lead of 16 points into the second half, with the scoreline reading 26-10. Coming into the second half, U-Mumba could not put behind their struggles and were annihilated by Pune at the end of the game, losing by a huge margin of 41-19. With this win, the Paltan created history by winning the Maharashtrian Derby for the very first time in the history of Pro Kabaddi League.
Squaring off with the rampaging Puneri Paltan, the Patna Pirates, who will be led by the wily old fox in Dharmaraj Cheralathan will have to conjure up some special algorithm and follow it step by step to beat Pune and get their campaign off to a positive start.
With momentum on their side following the championship victory in season 3, the Patna squad underwent a major revamp after the conclusion of the auctions. Prior to the auctions, the Pirates retained Rajesh Mondal and Pardeep Narwal, two of their star raiders.
In the auctions, the Pirates seemed calm and confident, procuring the services of some quality players. Dharmaraj Cheralathan will be leading the Patna squad while Kuldeep Yadav will try to fit the huge shoes of Sandeep Narwal. Foreign import Fazel Athrachali and Bajirao Hodage will act as the pillars of the Pirates defence with Pardeep Narwal, who was in some sublime form given the job of spearheading the raiding department.
While Patna has enjoyed tremendous success over the last three years, this year poses a new contest for the Pirates. With the shuffling of players taking place, the new-look Patna Pirates will have to gel together to make long strides in a bid to retain the trophy. Puneri Paltan on the other hand, will look to make it a hat-trick of wins, and stay glued to the top position on the points table.
