Teams that have the first home-leg in PKL, win only about 1 out of 5 matches (20%). So, at the first look, it’s just bad luck for Telugu Titans to have drawn at their home in the beginning of the tournament. However, at SportsKPI, we believe in looking at the numbers than believing in luck. Let’s have a look at how the teams and players performed in Hyderabad.

Team Performance Analysis

To begin with the home team, Telugu Titans never inflicted an All-Out on their opponents and were on the receiving end of it 7 times in the entire Hyderabad leg. In fact, they never reduced their counter-parts to less than 3 defenders on the mat in the 4 matches they played. Only other team to have the same stat are UP Yoddha! This shows that their defense had a hard time keeping opposition Raiders at bay while their Raiders, themselves, were out of depth.

“This is the season of the defenders!” You might have seen, read or heard this a lot during this season. The Raiders will, of course, score more points than defenders since their scope to get points per raid is much wider than that of the defenders. So, the fact that Raiders scored 60% of the total points is hardly surprising.Let’s get to the situational analysis of the same. Considering the events where 2 or less mins remain in the match and the score difference is less than 3. That would be a high pressure situation, right? During the Hyderabad leg, in such situations, the Raiders still were the ones who held their nerves more than the defenders.

Player Performance Analysis

There were absolutely solid performances from both Raiders and Defenders in the Titans’ Home Leg. Right from established PKL stars like Deepak Hooda, Maninder Singh, Joginder Narwal and Manjeet Chhillar to debutants like Suraj Desai, Mohammad Esmail and Nabibaksh, the PKL7 has been off to a firing start.

Let’s dive into the raiders first. While the top three raiders of PKL6 have had a struggling start to the season, a couple of new faces have emerged. Debutants like Mohammad Esmail and Suraj Desai have risen to the top, averaging around 10 points per match. Deepak Hooda and Maninder Singh continue their hot form from PKL6 to PKL7 with Success Rates of 73% and 69% respectively. At SportsKPI, we maintain that a player is as good as his net contribution to the team as explained in this Article. Based on the Net Points per Raid (NPpR) of raiders, we have identified the top 5 Raiders from the Hyderabad leg. These raiders not only scored points for their teams but also gave away very less points.

Image 2: Best and Worst Raiders

The Defenders, this season, have certainly showed that they are not to be messed with this season. PKL7 has seen a 6% rise in number of tackle points so far. The defenders continuing their rock-solid form from PKL6 are Joginder Narwal, Sunil Kumar and Parvesh Bhainswal. No surprises there. Manjeet Chhillar seems to have shaken off the Season 6 dust and is terrorizing raiders from the word go. Baldev Singh is the surprising entry in the top 5 as his contribution of 7 tackle points was massive in shutting out the UP Yoddha Raiders in their first encounter of the season. While we look at the stars that shined bright in the first leg, there are players like C. Arun and Narender, who continue their poor run of form even in the new season. Ravinder Pahal has 13 tackle attempts with a failure rate amounting to a massive 77%. That is very unlike The Hawk. SportsKPI has identified the top and bottom 5 defenders for the first home leg of PKL7 based on the Net points per Tackle (NPpT)

Image 3: Best and Worst Defenders

The Hyderabad leg was a good indication of the performance of the teams and players in the rest of the season. That being said, the season is very young and we have a long road ahead of us (“The road to the final is long and full of terrors”). We will be back on Saturday with the review of the Mumbai leg. Let’s see what twists and turns are in store for us then.

Article by our Sports Data Scientist – Sushant Rao