Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: Five talking points from Day 36 of PKL 5

#2 Will Telugu Titans at least now start looking past the names?

Telugu Titans had another forgettable evening

The Titans' uptick in performances began when Rakesh Kumar's injury-enforced absence turned out to be a blessing in disguise. They began to use Sombir who turned out to be a shark and has been the hero of two of their wins this season, against U Mumba and the Tamil Thalaivas.

Farhad Milaghardan began to shine as a useful all-rounder, helping out in raiding to go with solid defending. Vinod Kumar, the young, nimble-footed raider from Pondicherry was turning out to be reliable in key raids, much more than Vikas Kumar had been.

The Iranian Mohsen Maghsodlou, meanwhile, with his speed looked like the perfect third raider to have in the side.

Rakesh is now back from injury and somehow came straight back into the side. Vikas started as well. No Mohsen, no Vinod Kumar.

With their strongest performer of recent times, Sombir, struggling in the right corner, the Titans received a pasting at the hands of Puneri Paltan. It is unbelievable how poor this Titans team has looked at times this season. The frustrating part is that it is a situation that can be rectified with a few smart changes; changes that have already shown results.

Rahul Chaudhari is no exception. He may be the highest points scorer in the raid department in the history of Pro Kabaddi, but much of it is because he's a volume-scorer. The sheer number of raids he puts in helps him accumulate those points. And he's not the smartest raider around and that doesn't help when he's captain as well.

We are into the fifth season of Pro Kabaddi; teams now come solidly prepared and know all the tricks of the star players. And Rahul Chaudhari just continues to not be so smart with his raiding and Titans continue to rely on big-names purely based on their history.

We have seen almost every other team not hesitate to drop non-performing big names but not the Titans.

An unknown raider in Elangeswaran brought the Titans to life in this match with his Super Raid which took the score from 22-1 to 22-5 with a brilliant four-point raid. Mohsen was introduced in the second half and was so impressive, his speed and quickness proving tough for defences to deal with.

With the Paltan taking their foot off the gas in the second half and the Titans on the comeback trail, they actually managed to somehow whittle the lead down to just four points with a 14-1 run in five minutes towards the end of the match. They had the Paltan down to two men and with a minute and 30 seconds remaining, Rahul went in to raid.

The two men on the mat though were expert defenders in Dharmaraj Cheralathan and Girish Ernak. Rahul played the raid terribly and gave them too much of a chance and was brilliantly tackled by the Puneri duo.

It's this kind of terrible decision-making that has cost Rahul and the Titans over and over again this season. Will they turn the tide in time?