PKL 2019 | Over dependence on Nitin Tomar might cost Puneri Paltan title

Puneri Paltan has been impressive with the way they have performed so far in the sixth season of the Pro Kabaddi League. The franchise made some significant changes to their plans from the last season by bringing in Arjuna Award-winning former international player Ashan Kumar as their new coach for the current season and one of the major additions to the raiding department is the inclusion of Nitin Tomar - the most expensive player from a year ago. Since the beginning of the league this year, Tomar has been the only raider who has secured points consistently for the team while retained players like Rajesh Mondal and GB More have struggled in putting points on the board. 

Tomar hasn’t disappointed the team management either and has been very impressive with 78 raid points from seven games which include 4 Super 10s in the season so far. With an average of more than 10 points in a game, Tomar’s presence has played a major role in Pune’s success this season. His quick footwork and swift movement on the mat during crucial raids have made him a successful raider in the season. 

But there lies the problem for Puneri Paltan as neither of the support raiders has anything substantial to show with their performance in the season. Experienced Rajesh Mondal, GB More and young Deepak Dahiya have struggled. Pune’s rate of successful raids drastically reduces whenever Tomar goes off the mat during a game. Let’s take an example of their game against Gujarat Fortunegiants, where Tomar was off the mat for around 15 minutes and Pune struggled like anything to get points during their raids in the second half. Tomar had already completed his Super 10 in the first half and Gujarat worked out with the strategy of keeping Tomar off the mat. Consecutive empty raids forced more Do or Die raids where the other raiders messed it up. Only Deepak had three touch points while Mondal and More failed to get a raid point in that game. More has scored 12 points from seven games while Mondal has only eight from four and that means they haven’t performed as per their reputation. 

Another issue that the team might face is Tomar’s raiding style as he is a left-handed raider. So, when Pune faces a team having good right corners like Abozar Mighani from Telugu Titans, he might be in a spot of bother. We have already seen how his impact was nullified by the Jaipur Pink Panthers as they had one of India’s finest right corners in the form of Mohit Chhillar. Tomar had only one touch point in the entire match and Pune’s defence came up to their rescue with six Super Tackles in that game. Monu was the only raider in that game who could manage to secure five touch points.

Pune needs to come up with new strategies if there is a rare failure from Tomar or he stays off the mat in any of their upcoming games. Other raiders will have a lot to do in those games and that will take a lot of doing for the raiders from Pune. Monu and Deepak have shown some promise in the raiding department and they would expect them to come up with surprising performances in those encounters for Pune.