Puneri Paltan
After dominating the entire match against the Tamil Thalaivas, a collective brain fade from Puneri Paltan meant that they gave up a seven-point lead with just two minutes remaining. Puneri Paltan had to walk away with a tie and that is going to haunt them coming into this match.
Nitin Tomar is one of the most experienced raiders in PKL 2019 and his blunder in the dying moments of the match was just difficult to understand. He just needed to cross the balk line and come back with an empty raid to get his side a three-point win but he got tackled and Puneri Paltan suffered an all-out.
The side now needs to forget about that performance and come up with something better in this match. The focus is going to be on Pankaj Mohite, Manjeet, and Nitin Tomar who have been in decent form in the recent matches.
They will need to take advantage of a struggling Bengaluru Bulls defense and keep putting pressure on them. Of course, Puneri Paltan’s defense is also in a poor state with only Surjeet Singh showing good form. Girish Maruti Ernak, Hadi Tajik, and the rest need to lift their game in this important contest.
Bengaluru Bulls
The success of the Bengaluru Bulls has depended on two men for the vast majority of the matches. Pawan Kumar Sehrawat in the raiding department and Mahender Singh in the defense. Pawan Kumar Sehrawat is the highest scoring raider of PKL 2019 with over 200 points to his name already.
It is difficult to imagine the tally with which he might end this season considering there are a minimum of seven matches still to go.
He has not had the support from Rohit Kumar, though, and this is why the Bengaluru Bulls are beatable by keeping Pawan Kumar Sehrawat under check.
Mahender Singh has fought a lone battle in the defense and although Amit Sheoran and Saurabh Nandal have shown glimpses of what they are capable of, the Bengaluru Bulls defense is certainly susceptible to making errors.
The Bengaluru Bulls hold a slim 5-4 advantage over Puneri Paltan in head to head matches.
We think that the Bengaluru Bulls are going to be able to take advantage of a Puneri Paltan team that seems unsure about its best seven even at this stage in the tournament. The desire to keep Nitin Tomar in the frontline is hurting them even as younger players have shown they are ready to step up.
Bet on Bengaluru Bulls to win.