Tamil Thalaivas
The Tamil Thalaivas have been shambolic this season. They have underperformed expectations, there are reports of rifts between the senior players, there is finger-pointing evident on the mat, the captain has been changed mid-season, and the coach has resigned as well.
Things can get a lot more worse before they get better for the Tamil Thalaivas. Their performance against Dabang Delhi K.C. was terrible. They failed to keep Naveen Kumar and Meraj Sheykh in control and could not counter with any sort of attack of their own.
The Tamil Thaaivas defense had one tackle point to its name and 24 unsuccessful attempts just ten minutes into the second half. It was the worst performance we remember seeing from any PKL side in history.
Picking itself up and getting ready to face Pardeep Narwal is not going to be easy. Rahul Chaudhari managed to register a weak Super-10 for himself but he was not able to keep his team in the contest. A vastly improved performance from all the players involved is going to be needed for the Tamil Thalaivas to even be challenging Patna Pirates.
Patna Pirates
Everything in this team is about Pardeep Narwal. He needs to get the points needed to help his team win, provide the leadership on the mat, and be the guiding light for the side when it comes to strategy formation.
If he is going to be neutralized on the mat then everything else will fall apart.
Pardeep Narwal has been scoring points this season, he is the third most successful raider in the league, but he has not been as dominant as he once was. He also does not have the support to get away with being just Super-10s. He needs massive Super-10s which is not something easy to do match after match.
The Patna Pirates would be desperate for its other raiders to have an impact on the PKL even if it is at this late stage.
The defense for the Patna Pirates has not been very good in the recent matches. Jaideep, Jawahar Dara, and Hadi Oshtorak are all good performers without being exceptional. They also seem to make a lot more errors than some of the other teams we see in the PKL.
Stopping the Tamil Thalaivas raiders is not going to be easy.
The Patna Pirates have a 4-1 advantage over the Tamil Thalaivas when it comes to head-to-head matches between the two sides. One additional match ended in a tie as well.
We think that the Patna Pirates are in a better mind-space coming into this match. They may not have too much of a better team but they do all appear to be pulling in the same direction. In a sport like Kabaddi, that is a huge advantage.
Bet on the Patna Pirates to win.