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What initially seemed like a routine win for Puneri Paltan turned into a nightmare at the end of forty minutes. Up against Patna Pirates on Tuesday, Pune began the match on a positive note and were in the lead for nearly thirty minutes of the game.
However it all changed when Deepak Hooda was given out under mysterious circumstances. Pune's captain stepped up to raid, with a realistic possibility of inflicting an all out on Patna, who had only two men remaining on the mat.
In vintage fashion, Hooda dashed across and looked to have successfully executed a hand touch on Patna defender, Jaideep. Post this, Deepak even swore on the mat that he had touched him.
Jaideep surprisingly decided to take a T.V review and in what can only be described as an extremely disputable decision, it was deemed that Deepak never touched him. Hooda was left in a state of shock and had to be forced to go back to the bench. Post the game, he spoke about this game changing moment.
"I did touch him. I don't understand why they could not spot it in the review. I was extremely confident that I had touched him. It's bad luck that despite a body touch, they could not spot it. Or else I would have tried again. The T.V review couldn't even spot my body touch. This is just bad luck," he said.
Asked if that decision led to a change in the outcome of the match, Hooda suggested that if he was not 'wrongly' given out, the match would have ended then and there. To an extent, Pune's captain is correct, they did, after all, enjoy a handsome lead prior to that incident.
"It obviously affected us, we could have taken a huge lead after that. The match would have ended completely and then Pardeep scored a four point raid. It changed everything and the match slipped from our hands," he explained.
Once again, Pardeep Narwal was in the spotlight. He managed to score a massive 19 raid points, putting Pune to the sword and guiding his team to the semi-finals. But Deepak believes that prior to the referee's "wrong" call, his team were successful in keeping Pardeep in check. He reckons his players were negatively affected post that decision.
"Our plans against Pardeep worked to a large extent up until that decision. Before the referees mistake, we were doing well. But after that, he continued to score against us," he signed off.
