Which team will fare better in the opening encounter of PKL Season 8?

– Saiprasad Kagne

Pro Kabaddi, one of the most awaited leagues in India will start on 22nd December at 7:30 pm along with Bengaluru Bulls and U Mumba as 1st match of the league. In this article, we will have a deep look in previous encounters between these 2 teams across all seasons with an analytical approach.

Bengaluru Bulls v/s U Mumba

As we all know, Bengaluru Bulls and U Mumba will face each other in 1st match of PKL 8. Post auction of PKL 8, both the teams seem to be on top of each other in terms of raiding and defense unit as well. With the inclusion of few youngsters into the squad, PKL 8 will find some of the best raw talents across the country. Bengaluru Bulls is very strong with Pawan Sehrawat as their main raider and scored plenty of points from last 2 seasons along with Rohit Kumar as their best supporting raider especially in PKL 6.

However, in PKL 7 this was not the same scenario, Pawan was the only raider to finish the season as their best raider. When it comes to their defense department, they lacked a lot in various aspects such as inexperienced players, lack of experience in pressure games and plenty of advance unsuccessful tackles last season. Let’s hope in this season their defense unit also fires equally as that of raiding unit.

Last 2 seasons for U Mumba were pretty good as they successfully qualified for playoffs both the seasons, unfortunately they couldn’t get their way towards the title. Ahead of season 8, their raiding department looks quite decent along with Abhishek Singh their main raider with 169 raid points last season. As their records says against Bengaluru Bulls across 13 matches between them 10 times U Mumba dominated over the opponents.

While, only 3 times Bengaluru Bulls secures a win against them and 2 times in last 5 matches which shows their little improvement and may implement the same on 22nd December. Defense unit of U Mumba leads their captain itself Fazel Atrachali who was their most expensive player last season and he delivered successfully by ending the season as the most tackle points defender of PKL season 7. At last, U Mumba will surely take advantage of their record against Bengaluru Bulls.