Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: "I want to keep on breaking my own records," says Pardeep Narwal

Aggressive and belligerent, Pardeep Narwal was a man on a mission on Tuesday evening at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata. The Patna Pirates captain terrorised the Jaipur Pink Panthers’ defence and made sure that they had no chance to make a comeback into this Inter Zone Challenge contest between the two former Pro Kabaddi champions.

The 2014 champions were reduced to rubble thanks to the relentless attacks of the man, who broke his own highest score of 19 raid points this season to make a staggering 21 in the Pirates’ thoroughly dominating 47-21 defeat of the Pink Panthers.

Understandably delighted with his performance, the soft-spoken and shy Pardeep gave a one-line answer when asked about his stupendous display, “I want to keep on breaking my own records.”

That solitary sentence is enough to send a chill through the spines of the players in Patna’s opponent teams given how he ripped apart Jaipur tonight.

Coach Ram Mehar Singh could not stop smiling during the media interaction especially after the way his boys rebounded from their demoralizing loss against the Bengal Warriors just a few days back where they were initially leading.

The beaming coach heaped praise on the star of the show. He said, "Pardeep is strong and has the heart of a sportsman. There are good players in every sport, be it cricket, football or kabaddi but Pardeep is special.:

He added, "He does not get afraid at all. He knows that he has to play and get points for his team. He may talk less in real life but he definitely talks a lot through his performances.”

The coach also expressed satisfaction at how his team was able to bounce back after the loss in their previous match against Bengal.

“I am very happy with the win. And winning by such a big margin gives us more motivation. We have improved in all the areas. Vishal was asked to take control of the leadership in the right corner and Pardeep was asked to do the same in raids. They both did their job well. As a team, the boys played extremely well tonight.”

The hapless Jaipur missed the services of their regular captain Manjeet Chhillar and their star raider Jasvir Singh. The latter was instrumental in delivering them the win in their most recent outing against the Zone A leaders Gujarat Fortunegiants on Sunday.

Missing their most reliable stars certainly did not help the cause of Abhishek Bachchan’s team. Patna coach Ram Mehar Singh was honest that the absence of the most dependable veterans in the Jaipur squad did benefit the Pirates.

“We did not expect such a one-sided contest. But Jaipur did suffer due to the absence of Manjeet and Jasvir. Lack of senior players did affect them a lot. Apart from that, they also missed Selvamani, who too is unfortunately injured. We did benefit from their absence,” he admitted.