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UP Yoddha take on the Tamil Thalaivas in a Zone B clash of PKL 2018 at the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex in Panchkula today, Saturday at 8 PM IST.
UP Yoddha is coming off a surprising 7-point win (27-20) over the Telugu Titans, courtesy a strong defensive performance. The defense of the Yoddhas scored 11 tackle points with Nitesh Kumar emerging the side's top defender with 5 points.
The Yoddhas are back to their initial strategy of starting the game with all 3 key raiders - Rishank Devadiga, Prashant Kumar Rai, and Shrikant Jadhav. These 3 along with the all-round capabilities of Sachin Kumar give the Yoddhas enough strength and variety in the raiding department which helped them clinch 13 raid points against the strong defense of the Titans.
The Tamil Thalaivas, on the other hand, were poor in their raiding against the Bengal Warriors which led them to a 21-28 defeat in their latest match.
Amit Hooda, with his stupendous 7-point effort in defense, was let down by his team's raiding unit who could manage just 11 raid points in the match vis-a-vis the Warriors' 16 raid points.
The two sides, UP Yoddha, and Tamil Thalaivas, have previously faced each other twice in the season, Match 4 and Match 44, wherein Yoddhas won the first encounter 37-32, but the Thalaivas got their revenge in the latter with a 22-point win (46-24).
Key Battles to keep an eye on
#1 Ajay Thakur (right raider) vs Sachin Kumar (left corner)
#2 Prashanth Kumar Rai (left raider) vs Amit Hooda (right corner)
Probable playing 7
UP Yoddha: Rishank Devadiga (c), Shrikant Jadhav, Prashanth Kumar Rai, Narender, Jeeva Kumar, Sachin Kumar, and Nitesh Kumar
Tamil Thalaivas: Ajay Thakur (c), Sukesh Hegde, Victor Obiero, C.Arun, Ponparthiban Subramanian, Amit Hooda, and Sunil
When and where to watch: 20:00 IST on the Star Sports network and on digital streaming platform Hotstar.
Catch the latest updates of the Pro Kabaddi Points Table here at Sportskeeda.
