Defending Champions Patna Pirates inflicted a first loss on home team Puneri Paltan with a 30-24 win to start their Pro Kabaddi Season 4 campaign with a win. Pardeep Narwal with 7 raid points ably supported his captain Dharmaraj Cheralathan, who got a super 5. Nitin Tomar and Deepak Niwas Hooda with 7 and 6 points each carried their team, but a poor defensive output by their teammates meant their efforts went in vain.
The Pirates began their campaign against tournament favourites, Puneri Paltan. Usual suspect, Pardeep Narwal opened the scoring for the Pirates with a deft hand touch. At the other end, Nitin Tomar took out Patna captain, Dharmaraj in a do or die raid to make it 1-1. But Tomar was tackled in his very next raid and so was Pardeep. Captain Manjeet Chhillar made sparse use of himself in the first half.
In form, Ajay Thakur found it arduous to break down the Patna defence and was tackled in his third empty raid. The score read 5-4 in Patna’s favour after ten minutes. Some loose defending by Manjeet helped the Pirates extend their lead. But his counterpart, Dharmaraj was caught napping twice as he was sent to the bench again in quick succession. Last year’s top scorer, Sandeep though wasn’t having no trouble as he continued to pick up points for Patna courtesy some lightning hand touches.
His teammate, Rajesh Mondal forced a loose tackle from the opposition as Patna took a 9-6 lead. Pune were down to three with 2 minutes remaining in the first half. Presented with a do or die raid, Pardeep then executed the perfect Dupki and followed it up by taking out Ravinder Pahal to reduce Pune to one man- Nitin Tomar. He was immediately tackled as Patna inflicted the first all out of the match to take a 16-10 lead.
HT- Puneri Paltan 10-16 Patna Pirates
Captain, Manjeet introduced himself for the first time in the match and picked up a point. Specialist, Rajesh Mondal scored from a do or die raid to make it 17-12. Sonu Narwal followed it up with one of his own for Pune. Pune’s Ravinder Pahal found it extremely hard to keep up with the pace of the game as he was at the receiving end of multiple hand touches.
Nitin Tomar then produced an immaculate do or die raid leaping above Iranian, Fazel Atrachali to make it 15-17. Patna were down to two men. But they executed the perfect super tackle on Tomar to make it 19-16. Surjeet Singh then executed a gorgeous super raid for Patna. The first of the match. He blazed through Pune’s armoury to add three more points. With eleven minutes remaining, the score read 22-17 in favour of the Pirates.
Pardeep then produced three successful do or die raids as his friends seated next to the media box went bonkers. He and Nitin Tomar for Pune were shouldered with the bulk of raiding responsibilities in this match. The later was highly effective with his bonus points. With four minutes left, the score read 29-21 in Patna’s favour as Ajay Thakur- the lone man on the mat was tackled.
The all-out helped the Pirates further extend their lead. Patna were always comfortable throughout the match and were never really threatened out and out. The Champions continued from where they left off in season 3. A dominant all-round performance. Pune looked hazy from their win over U Mumba.
FT- Puneri Paltan 24-30 Patna Pirates
