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Haryana Steelers will not forget Monday's heavy loss anytime soon. They were given a kabaddi lesson by Patna's star man Pardeep Narwal, who managed to score a whopping 34 raid points on the night.
Haryana's defenders could not find any plausible solution to the carnage that Pardeep was creating in their half. Every time he stepped up to raid, one could always sense things could get ugly for the Steelers. Post the game, Haryana's Wazir Singh rued the fact that his defenders were a tad nervous against Narwal.
"There was tremendous pressure on our defenders, I kept telling them tackle him! Our defenders did not play the way they were supposed to and I am open about this. If we had applied pressure on Pardeep from the beginning, this situation would not have arisen," he said.
Wazir though shrugged aside suggestions that his team was scared of facing Pardeep Narwal. Singh reckons the only reason Narwal managed to score so many points was because Harana let him do so.
"In Pro Kabaddi, nobody is scared of anyone. If we were scared, we would not have entered the mat in the first place. We would have given this opportunity to some other team. Pardeep played freely without any pressure because our defenders did absolutely nothing," Singh stated.
Haryan Steelers coach Ranbir Singh Khokhar made no attempts to mince his words after the embarrassing defeat. He, too, pinned the blame on his star defenders and reckons Pardeep made Haryana's back line look amateur.
"Pardeep totally destroyed our defense. In the end it was such a situation, that the pressure was tremendous, There is no doubt about this, I accept it. We surrendered ourselves to him, especially in the second half. The duo of Mohit Chhillar and Surender Nada failed to perform well," he explained.
While it is never right to pin the blame on one particular player, the fact that Haryana's star defender, Mohit Chhillar failed to step up was surely one of the major reasons for their downfall.
The coach revealed that Mohit was still recovering from a slight knock on his ankle and believes he was not a 100% fit for this match. While Chhillar did start the game, he was eventually substituted in the second half.
"What you said is true, our defenders were scared of Pardeep. Mohit Chhillar had to undergo a minor operation four days before, maybe that is why he was not able to perform as per expectations," he signed off.
