Pardeep Narwal was rampant in Patna Pirates’ win over Bengaluru Bulls. (Source: Pro Kabaddi Media)
As his Patna Pirates coach spoke in the post-match press conference, Pardeep Narwal was starting to get visibly restless. He was pulling at the cloth that covered the table in front of him. He then started moving around one of the many cell phones placed in front of him. He could not sit still. It was almost like the adrenaline that pushed him into getting 15 points against Bengaluru Bulls was still pumping in his veins.
“I come into the match thinking that I need to defeat the opposition,” he said when asked what he thinks of when coming into the match. It was a straightforward answer and there weren’t any cross questions after that too. Narwal, after all, had done just that in the recently concluded match. He went into the opposition half and scampered about, running the Bengaluru defence ragged. There was a point when he got a touch but a defender arrived behind him to block his path. He simply rolled over him and danced back into his own half. The Bengaluru players stood there,possibly what on earth had they done that they were given someone like this to deal with.
“Our strategy is to put as much pressure as possible on the opposition team,” said Pirates defender Vishal Mane. It didn’t look like this plan would succeed when the match started off. Narwal’s first raid was an empty one and he was tackled out in his second. In the midst of all this, opposite number Rohit Kumar had managed to get a point. In fact, Narwal’s first point came only in the fifth minute of the first half and that was when his team leveled things up. Rohit Kumar too was a tour de force but the only difference was that Kumar, like any normal raider, had a couple of unsuccessful raids in the first half. It was his misfortune that his team had to deal with a freak like Narwal who scored at least a point in every single raid since he got his first successful one. By half time, Narwal had scored 10 points and the score read 22-11 in the Pirates’ favour.
In the second half, he only further damaged their confidence. Rohit Kumar is a bit of a crowd favourite in Nagpur but by this time, they were cheering every time Narwal went in to raid. We have seen Rahul Chaudhari’s performances being affected negatively due to this added adulation but Narwal seemed to enjoy it. That was the most striking feature of his peroformance – the non chalance with which he went about his job. Meanwhile, Bengaluru Bulls were in shambles. Their coach Randhir Singh was having a heated argument with one of the referees over water that someone from his team had spilt on the mat, as he later revealed. “Pardeep alone finished us,” said Randhir Singh in the post match press conference, “He had the lowest acerage against us in the last two seasons, but today he played well.” But he also admitted that the team cannot run away from their poor defence over the last two matches, “Our defence has let us down,” he said, “Now this is something we need to work on tommorrow.”
There are no matches that are to be played on Monday. Bengaluru Bulls will then have another go at Telugu Titans. Titans had collapsed under the cheers of their home crowd and the Bulls will be looking to avoid a similar fate. Patna Pirates, on the other hand, will now be playing only on Sunday at Ahmedabad.
UP Yoddha stopped from getting hat-trick of wins by Bengal Warriors:
Vinod Kumar was retreating to his half when a defender came to tackle him. But he didn’t budge and bulldozed his way back. If there was any moment that typified the first match that was played between Bengal Warriors and UP Yoddha. They were on their way to a third consecutive win but their challenged was met with a rampaging Bengal Warriors who showed ominous efficiency in their decimation of the Telugu Titans. If anything, they were only an improved side in this match and won 40-20.
UP came into this match without raiding tour de force Rishank Devadiga and captain Nitin Tomar had to sit out most of the match due to an injury. In their absence, UP failed to collect enough raid points. Korean Jan Kun Lee, Vinod Kumar and Maninder Singh wreaked havoc on their defence. They shared 21 points between them, more than what Yoddha could manage in the entire match. “It is difficult to find a better raider than Lee,” said Warriors’ captain Surjeet Singh in the post match press conference.
