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The home side, Puneri Paltan will take on U Mumba in the second encounter of today's evening in the Maharashtrian derby at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune.
It is touted to be a mouth-watering battle between U Mumba's raiders and Puneri Paltan's defense, and both the teams would be excited to stamp their authority on today's match as their previous encounter had ended in a tie.
U Mumba has one of the strongest sides in the competition, and a well-settled raiding unit comprising Siddharth Desai, Rohit Baliyan and Abhishek Singh, which has been instrumental in their wins.
Their defense has also been doing well with their captain Fazel Atrachali, experienced right corner Dharmaraj Cheralathan and cover Surender Singh consistently contributing to the team's score.
Puneri Paltan also boasts of a strong defensive unit which was in prime form in yesterday's evening's encounter scoring a phenomenal 18 tackle points which included an astounding 6 super-tackles.
The consistency of their defensive unit has been phenomenal in the tournament with a total of 70 tackle points from their 6 matches at an average of 11.67 tackles per match. Their captain, Girish Ernak is currently the top defender in the tournament with 24 tackle points from 6 matches.
Their attack, although a little out of form in yesterday's encounter, is not be taken lightly either as the prolific Nitin Tomar can take the game away from any opposition on his day.
The lack of raiding support to Nitin has been surprising from a squad comprising Rajesh Mondal and Deepak Kumar Dahiya, and its high time that they realize their responsibilities and step up.
Probable playing 7:
Puneri Paltan: Girish Ernak (c), Nitin Tomar, Monu, Deepak Kumar Dahiya, Sandeep Narwal, Ravi Kumar, and Akshay Jadhav/Rinku Narwal
U Mumba: Fazel Atrachali (c), Siddharth Desai, Abhishek Singh, Rohit Baliyan, Surender Singh, Rajguru Subramanian, and Dharmaraj Cheralathan
When and where to watch: 21:00 IST on the Star Sports network and on the digital streaming platform, Hotstar.
