Pro Kabaddi 2018: Match 36, Patna Pirates vs U Mumba| Match Preview and Predicted lineups
The home team Patna Pirates will take on U Mumba in the second match of the Patna leg of the Pro Kabaddi League 2018 on Saturday. The Pirates were off a comprehensive win against Jaipur and will look to get a win. U Mumba too will want to beat the Pirates and solidify their position in the Zone A table, and steal the top spot from current first-placed Puneri Paltan.
U Mumba steamrolled Telugu Titans 41-20 with a super performance from Siddharth Desai while Patna swept past the Jaipur Pink Panthers with ease. Patna are in the second place in Zone B with 3 wins in 5 games.
The Patna Pirates came into their leg with their struggling defense and dependent raiding department. Pardeep Narwal was brilliant in their last match, scoring 11 points and will look to continue his great form in the next match. His 2 Super Raids in the first half helped Patna take control of the game. Manjeet ably supported Pardeep and scored 10 points.
The defensive unit of Patna was their issue coming into the game and it responded brilliantly by scoring 14 tackle points. The seven day-break seems to have worked well as the Pirates were defensively sound. They were easily able to win this match, courtesy of 5 points from Jaideep in the left corner, and Vikas Kale too was excellent in the left cover with 5 points.
Jawahar Dagar contributed with 2 points. Vikas Jaglan should look to improve and will most likely be replaced by Manish. The defense will look to continue their great form in the next match.
U Mumba have been brilliant so far with both the raiding and the defensive departments functioning well. Siddharth Desai has simply been outstanding and the U Mumba management will be thrilled to see that their ambitious buy from the auction has paid off.
He has amassed 83 points from 6 games at a rate of 13.64 points per match with a 84.30% not out rate, which his remarkable. He also has 5 Super 10s from 6 games and 4 Super Raids to his name. Rohit Baliyan and Abhishek Singh have been average, scoring 25 and 23 points respectively while Abolfazl Maghsodlou has had a bad start to the season scoring just 5 points from 3 games.
Defensively, captain Fazel Atrachali has taken complete control of the proceedings and has struck fear into the hearts of opposition raiders. Without his Iranian counterpart Abozar this season, Fazel has played no less than last season, if not better. He has scored 23 points from 6 games with an average of 3.82 points per match with a tackle success rate of 67%, which is something to be proud of.
The other defenders have not fared too well with Dharmaraj Cheralathan in the right corner and Surender Singh in the right cover scoring 12 points from 6 games. Rohit Rana's return to form is a good thing for U Mumba and he will look to cement his place in the left or right cover.
Both Patna and U Mumba will be looking for a win and it will be no easy task for the Pirates to beat the in-form U Mumba, and Siddharth Desai will look to continue with his tremendous scoring spree and will try to break the Patna defense which has been wobbly. Pardeep Narwal will look to score points in a large number as well as stay on court for a long period of time and will be wary of the dangerous Fazel Atrachali.
Predicted Lineups: Patna Pirates - Pardeep Narwal (C), Jaideep, Deepak Narwal, Manjeet, Vijay, Vikas Kale, Jawahar Dagar
U Mumba - Fazel Atrachali (C), Dharmaraj Cheralathan, Siddharth Desai, Rohit Baliyan, Darshan Kadian, Surender Singh, Rohit Rana