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#3 Demolition man Deepak does the job
For the most part of the match, there seemed to be only one man on the mat who was doing everything for Puneri Paltan, mostly the raiding and the celebrating bit. One of the most reliable yet underrated raider in the league, who also does a terrific job at handling the leadership duties, Hooda was absolutely on fire on Saturday. And caught in the flames was the UP Yoddha side.
If his 16 points from the 18 raid attempts don’t tell how good he was, he also put in three super raids on the day. He had the wood on UP Yoddha’s Jeeva Kumar who, despite having been in some good form of late in the tournament, just couldn’t seem to touch Deepak without conceding a point.
Yet, even after getting 16 points from his 17 attempts, thanks to a stunning comeback from UP Yoddha, it all came down to Hooda’s final raid. With a point ahead, all that the tall raider had to do was to cross the baulk line. However, the Yoddha put up a high line defence and looked set to not allow him a legitimate raid. But just like he had done it all night, he used all his guile to push the right corner behind and make his raid legitimate and consequently, win the game for his team.
