PKL 2018 | Studs and duds of ongoing edition so far

Studs:

Much like Desai, Pawan Sehrawat has impressed one and all with his performance in the season for Bengaluru Bulls. Despite the presence of skipper Rohit Kumar in the team, Pawan has made a big name for himself in the league this season. Although he has been playing in the league from the third season, this year he came in as a surprise package for Tamil Thalaivas in the first game where the Bengaluru think tank used him more than their primary raider Rohit. Pawan vindicated the decision in the first game and ended up with 20 points, despite missing a majority of the second half. So far in the season, he has collected 74 raid points from five games at an average of more than 14 points in a game. The 22-year-old player from Delhi has been a key member in the Bengaluru defence as well and has three tackle points in the sixth season standing at key positions of left corner, right corner and right cover. With quick footwork and his ablility to go for multiple-point raids, he has eight Super Raids and four Super 10s to his name this season. Sehrawat’s incredible frog jump against Patna Pirates’ defenders made headlines for the young man from the Bengaluru camp. 

Vishal Bhardwaj

Fazel Atrachali

Duds:

Monu Goyat

Rohit Kumar

Being one of the most talented of all the raiders in the league, Rohit Kumar hasn’t done well in the ongoing season. Although he has underplayed himself in first few games allowing Pawan Sehrawat to go for the most number of raids for the team.  Pretty much like Monu Goyat, captaincy has probably taken a toll on the Bengaluru raider as well and he has a success rate of only 31.81% from 44 total raid attempts. Rohit has only 18 points from five game which means he averages less than four this season and has no Super 10s so far. In the previous season of the league, he had an average of around 10 raid points per match being in the same team. His performance though hasn’t affected the team’s performance because of the consistent show by Pawan and good support by Kashiling Adake.  

Pardeep Narwal

After the defending champions, Patna Pirates, let go Monu Goyat, they had huge faith in their captain Pardeep Narwal to deliver the goods during the raids. Despite Pardeep is at the third position of the Top Raiders table with 95 raid points from nine games, his performance has been below par as the success rate. He has gone in to raid on 169 occasions and has a success rate of just 44.97% which is much below than his standards. In the previous season, where the Pirates were crowned champions, Pardeep averaged 14.19 points per match whereas in this season he still has just more than 10 but considering the fact that he goes in to raid more often than not, this year he has been quite ordinary with his show on the mat. 

The Tamil Thalaivas had roped in the right corner defender in their side from the very first edition of their PKL campaign last year. Amit had a decent season in 2017 with 61 tackle points from 22 matches that he got on the mat for the Thalaivas. Come 2018, the performance of the defender has gone down and he has disappointed the fans of the Chennai-based franchise more importantly during their home leg where they had to suffer back-to-back defeats after winning the first game against the defending champions. Hooda committed silly errors on most of the occasions by going for unnecessary tackles and also stepping out during important raids. He has got only 19 tackle points from eight matches this season and has a success rate of 45.94% from 37 tackle attempts. His lacklustre performance has affected the Tamil Thalaivas big time and they are still lying at the bottom of the Zone B points table with only two wins from eight matches.