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The Haryana leg of the sixth edition of the Pro Kabaddi League 2018 came to a close as the hosts Haryana Steelers finished their horrific campaign at home with yet another loss, a 32-42 battering at the hands of U Mumba at the Motilal Nehru Sports School, Sonipat, Haryana.
The 10-point win was U Mumba's second win against Haryana of this leg as the Fazel Athrachali-led side now sit pretty at the top of the table with three wins from four matches as part of Zone 'A'. Haryana, on the other hand, started off on a high with a win in their opening encounter of the home leg but similar to the case of the Thalaivas, could not gather a single win in the four matches post the opening home match.
The Bengaluru Bulls dished out a complete performance to win 44-35 over the Thalaivas while UP Yoddha will be lamenting their two losses against the Telugu Titans and Patna Pirates respectively.
The Puneri Paltan will be going into their home leg with a loss and a win in their previous two encounters while the Bengal Warriors will be high on confidence after registering two wins from two matches thus far this season. The Tamil Thalaivas return after a long lay-off was a miserable one as they fell 35-44 to a resilient Bengaluru Bulls setup while the Telugu Titans will also hope to get back to winning ways in Pune.
The Haryana leg, however, did see some top performances from the raiders. Here are the top five raiders from the Haryana leg.
#5 Maninder Singh - Bengal Warriors
Retained by the Warriors ahead of the season, Maninder picked up his first 'Super 10' of the season with a commendable effort against the defense-heavy lineup of the Telugu Titans. Mixing his aggression with a mature understanding of the game, Maninder was the standout performer for the Warriors as he finished with 11 points.
#4 Siddharth Desai - U Mumba
An unknown entity ahead of the Pro Kabaddi League, Siddharth Desai has quickly climbed up the ranks and has emerged as one of the finds of the season. In the Chennai leg, Desai picked 27 points from 2 matches while in the Haryana leg, Desai finished with 23 points from 2 matches in U Mumba colors.
In the two matches against the Steelers, Desai picked just eight points in the first but stole the spotlight in the second game as he top-scored with 15 points, including a terrific six-point super raid. Such has been the impact of Siddharth's Desai's raiding that on days when the defensive unit has had a quiet outing, their poor show has been masked by the raider's top show that has propelled him to one of the top spots in the raiders' rankings.
#3 Pawan Kumar Sehrawat - Bengaluru Bulls
As if Pawan's terrific show in Chennai, where he picked up 20 points was not enough, the youngster's athletic raiding came to the fore once more as he picked up 14 raid points from the game against the Tamil Thalaivas apart from his vital contribution in the defense department as well.
Such was the impact of Pawan that the Thalaivas' defenders, including Manjeet, were kept on their toes as his running hand touches on the right cover defender brought him a host of points. In the early stages of the match, Pawan also produced a four-point 'Super Raid' that titled the scales in favor of the Bulls after which the young raider kept chipping away with the points through consecutive running hand touches on the right cover position defenders that caught the players off-guard.
#2 Pardeep Narwal - Patna Pirates
Pardeep Narwal's 14-point effort against the UP Yoddha was one of the driving factors in Patna's win over the aforementioned opponents. Having started slowly against the challenge posed by Nitesh Kumar on the right corner, Pardeep soon established himself as the one in charge and made raiding look simple.
The 'Dubki King', as he is fondly referred to soon found his bearings and went about his task with ease, picking points at regular intervals while targetting the left corner defenders, a position at which he collected most touch points in the game.
Gifted with an ability to charge at the defender at a lively pace, Pardeep was in his elements soon as he not only warded off the threat posed by Nitesh, he also blazed through the defense to finish on top of the raid charts for the game.
#1 Nitin Tomar - Puneri Paltan
A consistent performer who has developed a penchant for scoring raid points in heaps, Nitin Tomar yet again topped the charts in the raiding unit for Pune as he finished with 29 points from 2 matches. In the Chennai leg, Tomar was the top player for Pune as he managed to pick a total of 22 points from two games.
Nitin Tomar's 20-point burst against Dabang Delhi could not lead Pune to victory against Delhi but in their next assignment against the Steelers, Tomar was at his best, picking up nine raid points that meant that Pune always had the upper hand in the contest.
Such is the form that Tomar is in that he can be expected to go even bigger in the coming weeks and stamp his dominance even further, as one of the best raiders in the competition.
