Three-time defending champions Patna Pirates go into the sixth season of Pro Kabaddi League as the favourites once again. They kickstart the season with the tournament opener in Chennai on Sunday night against Tamil Thalaivas.
The unstoppable PKL 5 MVP Pardeep Narwal is returning to action after a record-breaking season and is on its way to top more PKL leaderboards this season.
Patna’s captain was the only player to score over 300 raid points (369 raid points), outscoring the second best raider (Rohit Kumar) of the tournament by a huge margin of 150 raid points.
Patna started last season with many questions raised about their defence after Vishal Mane, their most experienced defender who had been the team’s 2nd best tackle point scorer in season 5, failed to replicate his form. But as the season progressed, Jaideep, Jawahar and Manish started to come together with the support of all-rounder Vijay who contributed well as a second man defender.
Jaideep ended as Patna’s best defender last season and finished as the 3rd highest tackle point scorer of PKL 5. He is now their only proven defender this season.
PKL’s Most Successful Team
Patna Pirates have qualified for the play-offs in each of the five seasons of Pro Kabaddi League so far, the only team among the 12 do achieve the feat.
Three of those campaigns have also resulted in titles, coinciding with the arrival of skipper Pardeep Narwal in season 3.
Patna Pirates Coach: Ram Mehar Singh
He started coaching the Air Force and Services team at the national level in 2004. After proving his abilities as a coach at for these two sides, he was approached to take over as the coach of the Patna Pirates for season 5, winning the league in his first season as a PKL coach.
The Patna Pirates Squad
As expected, Patna Pirates retained their superstar Pardeep Narwal without hesitation before the PKL 6 auction. They have also managed to retain the core of their defense with Jaideep, Jawahar and Manish coming back into the squad.
The one big miss for the Pirates will be Monu Goyat who played a crucial part through his support of Pardeep Narwal. The gap left by him will have to be filled by Deepak Narwal who had a good PKL 5 with Bengal, playing a supporting role to Maninder Singh.
Raiders: Pardeep Narwal, Deepak Narwal, Vijay, Tushar Patel, Surender Singh, Jawahar, Manjeet, Naveen, Purna Singh, Vikas Jaglan.
Defender: Jaideep, Manish, Vikas Kale, Ravinder Kumar, Vijay Kumar, Bintu Narwal
All-rounders: Kuldeep Singh, Hyunil ParkTae, Deok Eom, Arvind Kumar, Parveen Birwal
Patna Pirates Captain: Pardeep Narwal
Pardeep has been a part of the Patna Pirates of all 3 of their title winning campaigns. He was appointed as full-time captain for the first time in PKL 5 and led them to their 3rd consecutive title.
He will once again be leading the team from the front in PKL 6. His numbers as a captain have been great with 369 raid points in 27 matches as captain at an average of 13.7. His average as captain is more than double of when he is not a captain.
He was PKL 5s best raider with 369 raid points, ahead of the second placed raider by 150 points. He has been the main reason behind the success of Patna Pirates in the past 3 seasons.
He has the best average raid points in the PKL. His average of close to 10 points a match is exceptional — since he’s almost getting a super 10 in every match
Patna Pirates: Big Stats
- They are the only team to have won the PKL more than once and also the only team to qualify for the playoffs in every season.
- The Pirates have won the title every season since Pardeep Narwal joined the team in PKL 3
- He was the only player to score over 300 raid points (369 raid points), outscoring the second best raider (Rohit Kumar) of the tournament by a huge margin of 150 raid points.
- Pardeep has the highest raid point average in the PKL at 9.8 raid points per game and is just 41 raid points behind Rahul Chaudhari in the PKL leaderboards despite playing 15 matches less.
- Pardeep is just 4 Super 10s away from overtaking Rahul in the PKL leaderboards.
- A big miss for Patna will be the services of Monu Goyat, who played a crucial supporting role for Pardeep Narwal in season 5.
- Pardeep has always had strong support alongside him in the Patna Pirates i. Rohit Kumar was the league MVP in season 3.
- Rajesh Mondal was the 3rd best Do or Die raider in season 4.
- Monu Goyat was among the top 5 raid pint scorers in season 5.
- This time, the responsibility lies with Deepak Narwal who was a crucial support for Maninder Singh in the Bengal Warriors team that topped Zone B in PKL 5. He had the 2nd best Do or Die success rate in PKL 5.
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