Studs

V Ajith Kumar

Neeraj Kumar

You just can’t ignore a player who scored 11 tackle points in a single game irrespective of what he has done in the other game. This has been Neeraj Kumar’s story in the league so far. Playing at the right cover position with someone like Hadi Oshtorak at the corner position, Neeraj’s performance has seen both the ends of the spectrum. The story was no different in Pune as well. After scoring 11 tackle points and helping Patna register a huge 55-33 win against the home team, he failed miserably in the previous encounter against Telugu Titans. He was one of the main culprits in the defence with as many as five unsuccessful tackle attempts and only one point in the entire game. It was the defensive failure for the three-time champions that led to the tie against the Titans. But, if we talk about that one evening against Puneri Paltan where Neeraj was at the top of the game, we are bound to take the player as a stud as the young lad was much better than many big names against Pune where he scored 11 points.

Duds

Joginder Narwal

Girish Ernak

When Puneri Paltan were done with their auctions ahead of this season, they had two very important players from their last year’s squad and they are Nitin Tomar and Girish Ernak. However, in the tournament so far, Tomar has struggled with injuries while Ernak has struggled to get his form back. He has no specific position at the left side of the mat and has mostly played at the left corner position. In the home leg as well, the Maharashtra defender had a terrible run and even didn’t find a place in their last home game against Bengaluru Bulls in which Sagar Krishna managed to score a high 5 playing in his place. In the three games in Pune, Ernak has scored seven points. The home leg was a phase where Pune’s defence showed some good performance on the mat but for Ernak, it was all the same. He had an enormous number of unsuccessful tackles and his rash tackle attempts affected the team big time in the entire home leg. In the matches against Patna, Gujarat and Tamil, he had four, four and six unsuccessful attempts. His poor run is something which must be hurting the Paltan as others like Surjeet, Manjeet, Pankaj Mohite, and Nitin Tomar have shown signs of improvement in the home leg and Ernak remains the only player to be effective otherwise he might be permanently replaced with Sagar Krishna at the left corner position.

With almost all the reputed raiders performing well in the Pune leg, the list of duds will include only defenders for me. Tamil Thalaivas have a very experienced line-up with players like Rahul Chaudhari and Ajay Thakur but it is not only about their raiders, the defence has top names like Manjeet Chhillar, Mohit Chhillar and Ran Singh. The trio has struggled big time in the season and that is the major cause of concern for the Tamil management. Manjeet had started well in the first few games at the left cover position this year but in last few legs, his performance has suddenly gone down. In the two matches in Pune, Manjeet scored only two points. In the game against the Paltan, both Manjeet and Mohit failed to open their accounts while Ran got only one point. It was completely the defensive lapses that resulted in the tie. However, against Haryana, Mohit came good with four tackle points but in addition to that, he also had three unsuccessful tackle attempts to his name as well. Despite having the experience, the continuous failures of senior defenders have made life tough for team management.

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