The most competitive season of Pro Kabaddi 2019 shifts to Pune with all twelve competing teams still in the reckoning for playoff spots.
Dabang Delhi K.C and Bengal Warriors, with their unbeaten runs, showed home legs can be an important factor in the run-in to the climax stages of the league while the likes of three-time champions Patna Pirates, who finally managed to win two games on the trot (after July), have shown there is still fire at the very bottom of the league.
32 points separate bottom-placed Tamil Thalaivas and Dabang Delhi at the top (the equivalent of five victories and two narrow losses) and with most teams still left with seven matches or more, anything is still possible in what is turning out to be a highly unpredictable season 7.
As the season has progressed, raiders have begun to have a bigger say in the matches. Pardeep Narwal has looked his very best in the recent matches, which included a 26-point raid fest against Tamil Thalaivas in Kolkata, while the Southern derby between Bengaluru Bulls and Telugu Titans showed why Pawan Sehrawat (18 raid points) and Siddharth Desai (19) are rated amongst the very best in the league.
Young raiders like Dabang Delhi’s Naveen Kumar (who has 12 consecutive Super 10s to his name), Tamil Thalaivas’ Ajith Kumar and U Mumba’s Arjun Deshwal have shown there is a new breed of wily, brave raiders developing in the country.
The VIVO PKL Season 7 begins at Pune from tomorrow, 14th September followed by Jaipur where matches begin on 21st September. The last two cities are Panchkula and Greater Noida, leading to nail-biting playoffs from 14th October onwards and the Grand Finale on 19th October 2019.
