PKL 2019 | Over dependence on Nitin Tomar might cost Puneri Paltan title
Puneri Paltan is leading the Zone A Points Table with 25 points from seven games and has four wins, two defeats and one tie so far. With the home leg in progress, they would like to be on the top of the table in the zone and the raiding form of Nitin Tomar matters a lot for the team from Pune.
Puneri Paltan has been
With an aim of strengthening their raiding department, the franchise bought Tomar for Rs 1.15 crore in the auction before the start of the tournament. He was the skipper of the newly-included UP Yoddha side in the 2017 season of PKL and had a good performance in the tournament with a total of 167 raid points from 20 games. UP Yoddha went into the playoffs and finished fifth in the competition and along with Rishank Devadiga, he formed a deadly raiding pair for the team. The Pune think-tank went for Tomar at the auctions as they wanted a player who can raid from his left side.
Speaking to SportsCafe, Pune coach Ashan Kumar said, “During auctions, we had a clear strategy, to get one good left raider who we could depend on and hence we roped in Nitin Tomar into our team.”
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.
“Nitin Tomar is a very good
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
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.
It will be tougher for Tomar when Pune meets Telugu Titans in this season as Mighani is in a very good form. With his powerful ankle holds and body
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.
Comments
Sign up or log in to your account to leave comments and reactions
0 Comments