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He was out for close to 20 minutes of the game but there are some things that just don't change. Patna Pirates star man, Pardeep Narwal struggled against UP Yoddha in the entire first half and for large parts of the second half.
He had a mere three points to his name but all that changed in the final five minutes as he ran riot and ensured Patna earned a well-deserved draw against UP in Sunday's crunch Pro Kabaddi League encounter. At the end of forty minutes, he finished with 9 valuable points, to add to his ever increasing tally.
Post the game, Patna Pirates coach, Ram Mehar Singh was very disappointed with his captain's performance. He believes Pardeep did not play with the same intensity like he usually does.
"There are many times, we've played three matches on the trot and won. So we were a bit over confident. We thought we could just breeze past UP Yoddha. When the star raider of the league plays slowly and get's tackled, the entire team feels the pressure," the coach explained.
The coach feels one need not praise UP Yoddha for their success in keeping Pardeep in check. According to Mehar Singh, UP's defence wasn't as great as it was made out to be, suggesting that it was Pardeep who was responsible for his own downfall.
"I've said this before, nobody can make a strategy against Pardeep. When he performs badly, it's because of himself not because the opposition made a good strategy. You can see the entire match, Pardeep's movements were slow. When you look at the kind of angles from where he was tackled, he was never tackled like this in the previous two legs," he stated.
With Narwal struggling initially, Patna looked completely out of sorts. However, Monu Gayat bailed them out on multiple occasions with some clever raiding. The coach was extremely pleased that the team was able to keep it together despite Pardeep's slow start.
"You can't call it a strategy. Pardeep played slowly despite which the team performed well. Monu Goyat did well in his absence. He never got tackled a lot during do or die raids and super tackles," he said.
Season 5 of Pro Kabaddi has produced a handful of close encounters. We're into week 3 and one still can't point out with assurance the favourites for the title. The Patna coach reckons the introduction of new players is the reason for the closely contested games.
"The reason for these close matches is the new teams and new players. We don't know how these new players play, how they tackle. The crowd likes watching such matches," he said.
