3 raiders who could finish with most raid points in PKL 10
We're only a week away from the start of the 10th season of the Pro Kabaddi League. The first leg set to take place at The Arena by TransStadia in Ahmedabad.
The Jaipur Pink Panthers are the defending champions heading into PKL 10. Led by Arjun Deshwal's stellar raiding effort and a superb effort from left corner Ankush, the Panthers clinched their second PKL title, with their first coming all the way back in the inaugural edition.
The PKL 10 auction was an entertaining event, with the record for the highest bid for a player being broken twice. There were some exciting changes to rosters of most PKL teams, making it interesting to see who'll top the table at the end of the season.
On that note, let's now look at three star raiders who could potentially finish with most raid points at the end of PKL 10.
#3 Narender Kandola (Tamil Thalaivas)
The Tamil Thalaivas' journey to the semi-finals in PKL 9 was a heart-warming, especially after they lost their prized buy Pawan Sehrawat to an injury in the very first match of the season. However, they rallied together under the tutelage of head coach Ashan Kumar, making do without the star player they spent more than half their budget on.
Their miraculous run wouldn't have been possible had it not been for the efforts of young Narender Kandola. The starlet scored 243 raid points in 23 matches, averaging more than 10.5 raid points per game.
With him set to be the outright lead raider for the side once again, Narender could match or even top his efforts from last season.
#2 Arjun Deshwal (Jaipur Pink Panthers)
Arjun Deshwal finished as the highest point-scoring player last season, leading the Jaipur Pink Panthers to their second PKL title. He scored a whopping 296 raid points in 24 matches, averaging 12.3 raid points per match.
With secondary raider V Ajith Kumar unlikely to take much of the raiding onus on himself, Arjun should comfortably put in the bulk of the raids for his side, giving him the best opportunity to secure maximum points.
Needless to say, he's the best raider in the league on paper going into this season. There's a good chance he ends up the highest point-scoring raider, like he was last time around.
#1 Pawan Kumar Sehrawat (Telugu Titans)
Every PKL fan, regardless of which side they supported, would have been disappointed to see Pawan Sehrawat miss PKL 9 with a season-ending injury only minutes into the first match of the season.
Tamil Thalaivas' record buy had to sit the entire season out. But, he made a tremendous comeback, leading the Indian national team to success both in the Asian Kabaddi Championships and to the gold medal at the Asian Games.
Once again, there were no surprises as he became the highest-paid player at the PKL 10 auction, with the down-on-form Telugu Titans paying a huge sum of ₹2.6 crores to sign the Hi-Flyer.
However, spending such a huge chunk of their purse on one player means that the Titans didn't have enough to spend elsewhere. Thus, they look a bit light in their raiding department in terms of raiders who can support Pawan.
He'll have to take even more of a responsibility in the raiding department than what he did for the Bengaluru Bulls. Considering how well he performed there, you'd expect him to be in the top three, if not the top of the raid points' charts come the end of the season.