Pro Kabaddi League 2018: U.P. Yoddha's roller-coaster journey to the playoffs

Introduction to PKL

The U.P. Yoddha was one of the four new teams added to Pro Kabaddi League in 2017, with the other three being Gujarat Fortune Giants, Haryana Steelers, and the Tamil Thalaivas.

U.P. Yoddha's performance in Pro Kabaddi League 2017:

These new teams created an upheaval in the competition as 3 of them - Gujarat Fortune Giants, Haryana Steelers, and U.P.Yoddha made it to the playoffs the last season.

The Yoddhas, as they are popularly known as, had one of the strongest raiding units with two of its raiders featuring in the Top-10 list of Most Raid points scored - Nitin Tomar with 167 points, and Rishank Devadiga with 165 points.

Their defense, on the other hand, had a poor run in 2017 as well as they had an average tackle point rate of just 8.74 in the competition. And the poor performance of their defense (8 tackle points) led to their defeat (38-40) in Eliminator-1 of the playoffs at the hands of the Puneri Paltan. They finished 6th in the season.

Auctions 2018

Just before the auctions, the Yoddhas' management announced a new head coach, Jasveer Singh who came on to replace J.Udaya Kumar.

Come to the auctions, while the Yoddhas lost Nitin Tomar to the Puneri Paltan, they got back Rishank Devadiga at an astounding price of ₹1.1 crores and bolstered their attack with the inclusion of Shrikant Jadhav (₹37 lakhs) and Prashanth Kumar Rai (₹79 lakhs).

While in their defense, which was a major problem area for them, they got back Jeeva Kumar (₹45 lakhs), Nitesh Kumar (₹6.6 lakhs), and Sagar B Krishna (₹13.2 lakhs), and further added Narender (₹8 lakhs) and Sachin Kumar (₹19.2 lakhs) to hope for a better performance in the 2018 season.

PKL 2018 - Phase I - the ups and downs in the first 7 matches

The defense of the Yoddhas looked better in the very first match of their season.

The Yoddhas had a positive start to their season with a win (37-32) against the Tamil Thalaivas in their first match of the season. It was a complete performance for the Yoddhas with 18 raid and 10 tackle points, which seemed to signify a great season for them.

But a hat-trick of losses, following the win, due to poor defensive performances, gave hints that this season might go the same direction or even worse if the defensive lapses aren't rectified as soon as possible.

Their fifth match of the season was against a strong Bengal Warriors, but the Yoddhas held on their nerves to secure a tie (40-40) due to a terrific raiding performance. Prashanth Kumar Rai was the top scorer with 13 points. Their defense still displayed signs of inefficiency and they could manage just 8 tackle points.

But in the next two matches, the Yoddhas, especially their defense, came back strongly and won the encounters against Puneri Paltan and Dabang Delhi on the back of all-round performances.

So, this no-loss streak of 3 matches gave the Yoddhas fans hopes of better coordination from their side to clinch encounters. And these seven matches also showed how lethal the raiding trio - Rishank, Prashanth and Shrikant, were turning out to be.

Phase II - The freefall

The Yoddhas started their free-fall as their defense began leaking points on a regular basis.

But all the hopes of the Yoddhas fans were dashed in this phase of the competition, as the Yoddhas had a nine-match winless streak.

This streak started with 2 losses, followed up by 2 ties, and then signified the undoing of Yoddhas as they had five losses on the trot to take them to the bottom of the Zone B standings with 3 wins, 3 ties and a whopping 10 losses in the 16 matches that they had played in Season 6.

As their defense showed no signs of betterment until then, the coach and the team management went through several permutations and combinations in order to find the right starting seven to win them matches.

There was a phase during their home leg when the management tried going in with just 2 of their 3 raiders, to get that extra defender in the side, but none of such strategies worked. The matters got only worse with injuries to Rishank Devadiga and Prashant Kumar Rai.

Phase III - the steady comeback

Nitesh Kumar's consistency in defense was key to the revival of the Yoddhas.

With just six matches remaining in the season and each one of them a must-win encounter, the coach and management decided to stick with their strongest starting seven and give them enough rope to instill confidence in them on their secured spot in the team.

This confidence in the players started showing results in Match 98 of the season, where they faced the Haryana Steelers, another team struggling with form issues, in an Inter-Zone Challenge encounter.

The Yoddhas were decisive and patient in their approach as both, the raiding as well as the defense unit, came together to secure a refreshing and hopeful win for their side. The raiding unit contributed with 19 raid points, while the defense contributed with a significant 9 tackle points.

The next two matches were against Telugu Titans and Tamil Thalaivas, while the former ended in a win for the Yoddhas, the latter was a tie. But, the campaign of the Yoddhas had slowly gathered momentum in the season and instilled a confidence in their abilities which was necessary before their next match against the reigning champions, the Patna Pirates.

Phase IV - the must-win against the champions

Prashanth Kumar Rai (center) was the star for the Yoddhas in their win over the Patna Pirates.

The match against the Pirates was critical from two aspects. First, it was a must-win for the Yoddhas after a tied encounter against the Thalaivas, and second, a win against the Pirates, who was also a contender for the playoff spot, would help the Yoddhas' chances of making it to this season's playoffs.

What an astonishing outing Match 115 turned out for the Yoddhas! The Pirates rushed off to a 4-0 lead in the first couple of minutes of the match while the Yoddhas seemed clueless with an unorganized defense and an undecisive raiding unit.

Shrikant Jadhav brought some relief to their camp with a successful raid in the 3rd minute of the match. They slowly started making inroads into the match and went to gather a slender, 5-point lead (22-17) by the end of the first half.

And then with terrific performances from Prashanth (11 points), Shrikant (8 points) in the attack, and Sachin (5 points) and Jeeva (4 points) in the defense, the Yoddhas surged ahead to clinch a crucial victory (47-31) against the Pirates in a dominating fashion.

Phase V - the final stretch of the league stage

Rishank's performance would be key against his ex-team, U Mumba in the Eliminator.

Two matches remained, and both against teams, U Mumba and Bengal Warriors, who had already made their way to the playoffs. The road ahead was tough, but the win over the Pirates gave the Yoddhas the strength to visualize their way to the playoffs.

Although Siddharth Desai, the U Mumba strike raider, did not play the entire match, the win for the Yoddhas was still crucial for two key reasons. Firstly return to form of their captain, Rishank Devadiga was crucial. Secondly was the fact that the otherwise impatient side kept their calm in the final minutes of the match to clinch the encounter.

Now came the final match for the Yoddhas, which was the final match of the league stage as well. Only a win against the Bengal Warriors would have taken the Yoddhas to the playoffs, ahead of the three-time champions, the Patna Pirates.

The game turned out to be a cakewalk for the Yoddhas, as the Warriors, who had already made it to the playoffs, decided to substitute their key players, in order to avoid injury before their Eliminator match. This decision of the Warriors coupled with the terrific performance of the Yoddhas' defense (14 points), especially Nitesh Kumar who scored 6 tackle points, paved their path to the playoffs, for the second consecutive time.

Nobody could have predicted for a side who had a 9-match winless streak and were crawling at the bottom of the table to have won five matches of their final six, to qualify for the playoffs in a flourishing run.

Up Next

The Yoddhas face U Mumba in Eliminator-1 at 8 pm IST on December 30, Sunday at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Kochi.