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With the Chennai leg of Pro Kabaddi League 2019 ending last night, the tournament will now move to Delhi with Dabang Delhi K.C. hosting the tourney for the next seven days. The home teams have not been able to take good advantage of playing in front of their home crowd this season hence, it will be intriguing to see if Dabang Delhi K.C. are able to reverse that trend.
Coming back to the Chennai leg, the defenders had a good outing in Chennai as only once was a team able to reach the 40-point mark in the matches played at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Tamil Thalaivas' key defender, Manjeet Chhillar missed 3 home games but the team's other defenders stepped up in his absence.
Here are the top 5 defenders from the Chennai leg of PKL 2019.
#5 Vishal - Jaipur Pink Panthers
Matches - 2, Tackle Points - 8, Super Tackles - 3
While Sandeep Dhull has been dominating the defenders' leader-board with his consistent performances, the cover defender of Jaipur, Vishal has supported him to perfection. The under-appreciated all-rounder came to limelight in the Chennai leg as he emerged as the best defender of his team.
Playing against U.P. Yoddha, Vishal executed 2 super tackles to take 4 points in that match while in the game versus Tamil Thalaivas, the cover defenders executed 3 successful tackles to ensure that the Pink Panthers defeated the home side.
These impressive performances of Vishal helped him score more points than Dhull and Amit Hooda in the Chennai leg.
#4 Rinku Narwal - Bengal Warriors
Matches - 2, Tackle Points - 8, High 5 - 1
With 3 tackle points against Dabang Delhi K.C. and a High 5 versus Patna Pirates, Rinku Narwal owned the raiders in the Chennai leg of Pro Kabaddi 2019.
The former Puneri Paltan star committed more unsuccessful tackles than successful ones against Dabang Delhi K.C. which led to his team not winninng the match.
However, he improved his game in the following encounter and managed to execute 5 successful tackles against Patna.
With Bengal Warriors' home leg still to come, Maninder Singh and co. would hope that Rinku Narwal reduces his errors in the defence. Rinku holds the 12th position on the 'Most Tackle Points' list.
#3 Ran Singh - Tamil Thalaivas
Matches - 4, Tackle Points - 9, Best Performance - 4 Tackle Points vs Puneri Paltan
The left corner of Tamil Thalaivas, Ran Singh started off the home leg with a bang. He scored 7 tackle points in the first 2 matches besides also scoring a bonus point to win the hearts of the fans. However, he could not replicate his performance in the last two fixtures where he failed to open his account against his former team, Jaipur Pink Panthers and scored only 2 points against U Mumba.
Ran Singh's best performance came in the game versus Puneri Paltan. He committed only 1 unsuccessful tackle in that game and his 4 tackle points denied Pune a win.
An interesting point to note here is that Singh committed only 5 unsuccessful tackles in 4 matches. Also, he was the second best defender of the team in terms of most tackle points scored.
#2 Mohit Chhillar - Tamil Thalaivas
Matches - 4, Tackle Points - 10, Best Performance - 3 Tackle Points vs Jaipur Pink Panthers
Mohit Chhillar in his debut season for Tamil Thalaivas has played against 3 of his 4 former PKL teams namely Bengaluru Bulls, U Mumba and Jaipur Pink Panthers in the Chennai leg. He started off slow with just 1 tackle point against the Bulls but returned with 3 points against Puneri Paltan.
In the game against Jaipur, he had a 100 percent tackle strike rate with 3 tackle points in 3 attempts whilst he ended the home leg with 3 points against U Mumba. Chhillar could not register a single High 5 for his team and in the absence of Manjeet Chhillar, the team's defence struggled to consolidate the lead.
#1 Surjeet Singh - Puneri Paltan
Matches - 2, Tackle Points - 13, Best Performance - 7 Tackle Points vs Tamil Thalaivas
To play against Tamil Thalaivas at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium is perhaps one of the toughest jobs in the world. However, Puneri Paltan's skipper, Surjeet Singh stayed as cool as a cucumber under pressure and delivered the goods for his team.
He scalped 7 tackle points against Tamil Thalaivas and had a 100 percent tackle strike rate. His heroics helped Pune fetch 3 points from that game. Next, the Puneri Paltan squared off against defending champions, Bengaluru Bulls.
The biggest achievement of Surjeet was to keep Pawan Sehrawat quiet and his teammate Jadhav Shahaji supported him brilliantly. Singh led his team from the front with 6 tackle points and finished the Chennai leg as the best defender. He is at the 8th position on the 'Most Tackle Points' list.
