Dabang Delhi's listless show in Naveen Kumar's absence exposes fragilities of queer concern

On January 10th, 2022, Dabang Delhi K.C's star-studded outfit jogged out to the mat for their clash against the Jaipur Pink Panthers, high on confidence without conceding a single loss from their seven matches prior to this contest.

Going by past results, one would have been deemed foolish to bet against Delhi, with raiding sensation Naveen Kumar rampaging through opponents and the Jaipur defenders posed with the close-to-impossible task of keeping the youngster at bay.

To add context to this statement, prior to the Jaipur encounter, Naveen had to his name 123 out of Delhi's 163 raid points, a whopping 75.46% of the team's total scored by one man alone.

From seven Pro Kabaddi 2021-22 matches, Naveen's belligerent raiding earned him 123 raid points, an average of close to 18 per game. The youngster scoring a Super 10 in each game was a foregone conclusion, and every time he was on the mat, Delhi's coach Krishan Kumar Hooda could rest easy.

On that day, though, the story panned out in an entirely different way. Delhi's go-to man struggled to score points, with the Jaipur defenders having seemingly done their homework to stop the 'Naveen Express' in his tracks.

In a rare occurrence, Naveen picked up just 7 points from 19 raids, and with that, his streak of picking up 28 Super 10s in a row, dating back to PKL 7, came to a screeching halt.

What's more, despite Ashu Malik outscoring Naveen and the defensive unit coming to the party, Delhi were inflicted their first loss of the season by a nail-biting 28-30 margin to Jaipur.

For those who had closely followed the season up until then, Delhi's loss raised a couple of questions. What was Plan B if Naveen had an off day on the mat? Do Delhi have enough in the tank to stitch individual performances for a win in Naveen's absence?

The answer to both those questions, at the end of Delhi's massive loss to the Bengaluru Bulls, was a massive NO.

Dabang Delhi's listless show sans Naveen Kumar is an issue

Bengaluru Bulls' trouncing of Dabang Delhi, who played without Naveen in the starting 7 or in the substitutes, certainly raised more than a furrowed brow. From a general perspective, Naveen's talent and skill on the mat is a good enough reason for Delhi to bank on the youngster fuelling multiple wins.

However, the overdependence on him has now potentially crept into a sense of self-doubt in the minds of Delhi's players and support staff, especially after such a harrowing loss.

The underlying issue here is that in Naveen's absence, Delhi have found it hard to turn to anyone else for inspiration, with the youngster often stealing all the limelight courtesy his inimitable talent.

In PKL 7 as well, in the only match in which Naveen didn't play for Delhi, they succumbed to a 33-50 loss to UP Yoddha, further highlighting the urgent need for coach Krishan Hooda to seek a solution to this pressing issue.

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Who then, if not for Naveen Kumar?

The answer to that question isn't easy. After Naveen, Delhi's second-highest point-scorer is Vijay Malik, who has 41 points from nine matches - almost 100 points behind the young raiding sensation.

To his credit, Vijay has done well enough in his role as the secondary raider, but he's certainly not at Naveen's level and moreover, he isn't looked at in a lead role capacity.

Delhi also have in their squad veteran Ajay Thakur, a man who's tormented defensive units with his long reach and speed on the mat, but he's spent too much time watching from the sidelines. Even within the limited sample space of his raiding this season, the former India captain has looked a pale shadow of his former self.

They've also got fresh legs in young Ashu Malik, who's shown glimpses of potential in the limited opportunities he's got. Neeraj Narwal is another option for Delhi, who picked up a Super 10 to his name last season when they played without Naveen in the match squad.

However, both of them lack experience and game time, two important ingredients that are almost mandatory to survive in the Pro Kabaddi League.

The problem for Delhi, then, is a queer one. They've won far too many games influenced by Naveen's sizzling performances, so much so that they haven't had to look beyond the youngster for match-winning performances.

Naveen Kumar's workload reduction, a possible solution?

Naveen Kumar's workload could be altered to suit Delhi's alternate strategy

In Pro Kabaddi's storied history, we've often seen secondary raiders step up and at times outperform the lead raider, and in Delhi's case, it could be as small as providing more opportunities.

Delhi have put in 362 raids from their first nine matches, an average of 40 per game. Naveen has 198 raids from those to his name, 54.69% of the total which goes even higher to 62.06%, prior to the game against Bengaluru.

Workload is a much spoken about topic in the PKL, and Delhi could maybe consider handing out more opportunities to their supporting raiders in Vijay and Ashu Malik, in a bid to facilitate their performance on a rare day when Naveen falters.

Thus far this season, Vijay has been thrown to the wolves mostly in Do or Die raids, and while's he done a reasonably good job at it, a few other raids without pressure on his shoulders could do him a world of good.

Other franchises this season have all succeeded by forming raiding pairs, where the supporting raider is often given multiple opportunities in a match. For Patna, Prashanth Rai partners with Monu Goyat or Sachin Tanwar. The Bulls have Chandran Ranjit and the lanky Bharat to support skipper Pawan Sehrawat.

The difference between the aforementioned Pro Kabaddi teams and Delhi is that the supporting raiders have stood up at times of peril. In Delhi's case, neither Vijay nor Ashu have grabbed eyeballs in the last two games, when Naveen hasn't left the opposition defenders down in the dumps.

And so the answer could be as simple as taking away a little bit of the spotlight from Naveen, and allowing him to catch his breath. While the youngster will certainly be running high on adrenaline and would want to raid as much as he can, in terms of the greater good, taking a very small bit of the load off Naveen could save them from the blushes.

One might argue that Delhi's mantra of 'Why fix things when they aren't broken' fits in perfectly to make a case for their dependence on Naveen, but now that there is a gaping hole in their otherwise airtight strategy, it's time to peep over the other side of the fence.