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After playing out a thrilling tie against UP Yoddha, defending champions Patna Pirates were up against Puneri Paltan and found themselves sinking against an all round Paltan in the first half. The second half saw Pardeep Narwal back in his elements as he helped his team mount a comeback with a record 19 points. However, the team's first half show had sealed their fate and despite Narwal's heroics, Puneri Paltan ended the match as the winners.
Home team UP Yoddha came into the match searching for their first win in front of the Lucknow crowd against a Jaipur side without their talismanic leader Manjeet Chhillar. They ended up slumping to a third consecutive loss, though as they gave away the advantage by playing conservative kabaddi.
Some referee decisions also didn't go their way but in front of a young Jaipur side, they only had themselves to blame to allow the match to slip the way it did on Sunday. Here are the 5 talking points from the day.
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#1 Ziaur Rahman begins the rout and ends it too
Ziaur Rahman had his first experience of Pro Kabaddi in his team's last match but just couldn't seem to manage to get his first points on the board. He would always agonisingly end up as the supporting cast to the likes of Narwal and Ernak on that night. On Sunday, however, he got his first tackle point against his name and how!
In a first half that saw Puneri Paltan dominate the proceedings, it was the Bangladeshi who started making life difficult for the Pirates combination of Narwal and Goyat. When Goyat came raiding early in the first half, Rahman gave him a low dash he would not forget as the man on the run was thrown mercilessly out of the court. But that was just to serve as the prelude to the Bangladeshi's duel with Pirates main man Pardeep Narwal.
Narwal had a tough time against Yoddha's Pankaj in the last match and this time, it seemed, Rahman had his number as he foiled his dubki attempts thrice in the first half and helped defang the Pirates. With a few minutes left in the second half and Narwal threatening a miraculous comeback, Rahman once again pinned him down to celebrate his first High 5 of Pro Kabaddi League. Rahman, with his performance on Sunday, definitely earned himself a few more matches in the Puneri Paltan defence.
#2 Paltan deflate the Pirates in the first half
The match began with the question -- Will Pune be able to win their first match again Patna Pirates? All these years, Patna Pirates have been that one mystery that Paltan unit had failed to solve. But a confident Puneri Paltan played a different game altogether when they turned up against Patna on Sunday in the first half.
Their defence, led by foreign recruit Ziaur Rahman, kept on sending Pardeep Narwal and Monu Goyat back to the bench and Rajesh Mondal, with captain Deepak Niwas Hooda for support, kept piling on the raid points on the scorecard. Patna Pirates, who had been given a scare by UP Yoddha in their last game, were left dazed by what came their way on Sunday and faced two All Outs even before the clock had indicated half time.
Credit to Patna for having come back from a score of 21-7 to a position where they seemed to threaten a come from behind victory. That was, however, averted and Puneri Paltan did succeed in winning their first Pro Kabaddi League tie against Patna Pirates.
#3 Pardeep Narwal's late blitz goes in vain
The Patna Pirates looked down and out in the first 15 minutes of the game and their prospects in the game looked bleak as neither Goyat nor Narwal seemed to be firing for them against a belligerent Paltan defence. But Narwal is a feisty character and every time it appears that he has been sorted out by opponents, he brings out a performance that just provides a certificate of his incredibility. Sunday was just another such occasion.
After having faced two All Outs, Patna got their full strength team back on the mat but all looked lost with the score reading 21-7 in Pune's favour. Narwal then unleashed his attacking brand of Kabaddi and it all began coming off for him.
In no time, he had raced to his fourth Super 10 of the season. Expressions changed on the faces of the Pune side as they began sensing the threat that Narwal was beginning to pose. With a 4-point raid, the young man got his team very close to Pune's score with just about 3 minutes left but a niggle and a non-firing Monu Goyat prevented his team from doing the impossible.
#4 Quick footed Tomar shows his moves
The moment of the day, or shall we say the move of the day, came from UP Yoddha captain Nitin Tomar. The man bought for a whopping 93 lakh in the auctions came raiding in the 12th moment with his team behind. Prowling around the centre of the court, Tomar tried to get Somvir Shekhar with a toe touch. It was a good move considering Shekhar was the team's leading defender in the absence of Manjeet Chhillar but it didn't work as an alert Shekhar got his foot away just at the right moment.
What followed was even better as before he could blink, Tomar had transferred his weight and taken his left foot in the opposite direction to place it on defender Sunil's foot. Before anyone could realise, the show was over as a jubilant Tomar leaped back to his side after providing one of the finest toe touches in the history of Pro Kabaddi.
Seeing his quick footwork, the commentators were compelled to compare Tomar to a fine dancer as the audience heartily applauded the raider's skills.
#5 Pendulum swings dramatically in the dying minutes
The low scoring match moved at a snail’s pace in comparison to the one that took place before it between Pune and Patna. But it all heated up in the last couple of minutes in a way not many could have predicted. Jasvir Singh went into raid with the teams tied at 19-19 and everyone wondered why he, instead of the young Nitin Rawal who had impressed everyone on the night with his ability, went in for the all-important raid.
It almost went all wrong for Jasvir when Sagar Krishna and Hadi Tajik, the only two UP men on court, seemed to have inflicted a super tackle on him. The referee, however, was up to the task and handed Jaipur a point as Krishna had pulled Singh by his shirt, enough for the referee to send him out for foul play.
In the next raid, Hadi Tajik owing to an error by Jasvir, went home with two points to put the Yoddha in lead again. The next raid by Jasvir was even more dramatic as Tajik and another defender had managed to keep Jasvir from crossing the mid-line. Yet the referee ruled in Jaipur’s favor, much to Tajik’s dismay whose protest elicited a green card for him. The next raid from Yoddha saw Jaipur inflict the all out and complete the formalities for the win.
