After a dramatic tie in their last VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season 7 outing, Puneri Paltan will be looking to go one better when they face Bengaluru Bulls at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai on Wednesday. The defending champions, meanwhile, will be confident about registering back-to-back wins in Chennai having already gotten the better of hosts Tamil Thalaivas at the venue.

Match 51: Puneri Paltan vs Bengaluru Bulls

Puneri Paltan face Bengaluru Bulls in Match 51 of VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season 7.

Head-to-head: Puneri Paltan 5 – 5 Bengaluru Bulls

Puneri Paltan

Form guide:

Played: 8

Won: 2

Tied: 1

Lost: 5

Win rate: 25%

Best Raider: Pankaj Mohite

Best Defender: Surjeet Singh

Puneri Paltan had to share the spoils in their previous encounter after their match against Tamil Thalaivas finished in a tie. The Maharashtra-based outfit looked on course for a win but allowed Tamil Thalaivas a way back into the contest in the closing stages. Coach Anup Kumar made it clear that he wasn’t happy with the result at the post-match press conference and you can rest assured that his players will be vying to make amends against Bengaluru Bulls. That said, there were plenty of positives to take from the tie but perhaps none more so than the performance of Surjeet Singh. The Puneri Paltan skipper returned to form in style with seven tackle points and he’ll be hoping to put in a similar display against Bengaluru Bulls. With defenders like Hadi Tajik and Girish Ernak also in their ranks, it’s fair to assume that Bengaluru Bulls’ raiders will be tested. As far as Puneri Paltan’s offence is concerned, Pankaj Mohite has been the team’s leading raid points scorer (38). He along with Nitin Tomar and Manjeet will have to shoulder most of the responsibility in attack.   

Bengaluru Bulls

Form guide:

Played: 8

Won: 5

Tied: 0

Lost: 3

Win rate: 62.5%

Best Raider: Pawan Sehrawat

Best Defender: Mahender Singh

After returning to winning ways in their last match, Bengaluru Bulls will be looking to keep that winning feeling intact at the expense of Puneri Paltan. Pawan ‘Hi-Flyer’ Sehrawat will once again be the reigning champions’ biggest threat. He’s the league leading raid points scorer (98) at the moment and is likely to become the first player to breach the 100 points barrier this season against Puneri Paltan. He scored a Super 10 in his side’s last outing and keeping him as well as skipper Rohit Kumar quiet will be crucial to Puneri Paltan’s hopes of a victory. Bengaluru Bulls’ defence has also shown that they are capable of holding their own against top quality raiders this season. Even though Mahender Singh is their leading tackle points scorer, their defence isn’t by any means reliant on any individual, such is the depth of the squad in that department. Amit Sheoran, Ankit, Saurabh Nandal and Vijay Kumar showed how good they can be against Ajay ‘Iceman’ Thakur as well as Rahul ‘Showman’ Chaudhari in Bengaluru Bulls’ last game and they’ll be hoping to have a similar sort of impact against Puneri Paltan.