Fazel Atrachali vs Nitesh Kumar: Battle of the two corner tigers

Ask any prominent raider in the Pro Kabaddi League whom they dread the most, and Nitesh Kumar and Fazel Atrachali will surely feature among the list of top five names. Rightly so, both the defenders have made a name for themselves in the league, delivering consistent performances season after season. 

Both Fazel and Nitesh's mere presence on the court brings a lot of stability and instils a sense of confidence within the defensive unit of the team. One operating from the left while other from the right corner, both have been instrumental in leading the defence of their respective sides. 

The numbers of both the players are quite phenomenal with little separating the two feisty characters. While one has already become a household name, other has been making a significant mark in his nascent PKL career. 

In this article, we look at the comparative analysis between these two corner defenders.

1.Battle for the ‘Numero uno’ spot

Head to head – Fazel vs Nitesh

Both Fazel and Nitesh stand neck to neck in terms of the most successful defenders in the league. Interestingly, both have the same number of tackle points (222) from the last 3 editions of PKL. While Nitesh has a slightly better average tackle points per match (3.31) compared to Fazel (3.13), the Iranian pips the right defender with a slightly better tackle strike rate of 60.98 over 60.49 of Nitesh.

2. Matchup against the best raider of the league – Pardeep Narwal

Pradeep Narwal has inarguably been the best raider in the history of the league with most number of raid points scored, rattling the opposition defences with ease. Looking at both these defender’s performances against the Dubki king, Fazel clearly holds the edge over his rival. Fazel has scored 15 tackle points from 17 tackles at a stellar strike rate of 88.23. On the contrary, Nitesh's performance against Pardeep has been subdued with a meagre return of 12 tackle points from 21 tackles with a strike rate of 57.14. Fazel clearly holds the upper hand over Nitesh in this regard. 

3. Contribution in wins

Here again, there is a neck to neck battle between the two superstars with the average tackle points scored in wins almost similar at 3.64 and 3.68 for Fazel and Nitesh respectively. But when it comes to the tackle strike rate, the Iranian clearly holds the ascendancy over the Yoddha skipper with a tackle strike rate of 76.19 from 210 tackles in victory causes as against 59.37 for Nitesh Kumar.

4. Performance in Super Tackles

As far as the performance in super tackles is concerned, the right corner star wins the race with 17 super tackles to his name compared to the U Mumba captain who has 11. Nitesh Kumar is also the 2nd highest points scorer in the league from the last three editions with respect to the number of successful super tackles.

5. Performance breakdown over the course of the match 

Nitesh Kumar - Tackle points scored as per time intervals:

Comparing the performance of both the defenders across the entire duration, there is not much to separate between the two in the first half of play as both are equally dominant. However, in the closing stages of the match, in the final 10 minutes of play, the two-time PKL trophy winner holds the advantage over his opponent with a tackle strike rate of 70 and 51.76 in the final 10 minutes of the match.

Fazel Atrachali - Tackle points scored as per time intervals:

Overall, from the above analysis, it is clear that the Fazel Atrachali clearly holds the edge over Nitesh Kumar in the battle of the corner defenders. No wonder why he is rightly regarded as the Sultan of defense in Pro Kabaddi with his impeccable skills.