Patna Pirates’ 15-33 defeat against Dabang Delhi last night in Pro Kabaddi 2016 Season 4 left everyone shocked and in utter disbelief. Not only were the defending champions beaten, they were literally demolished by a team that was apparently lacking confidence and any sort of momentum. The coach of the defending champions, Arjun Singh, was quite candid in admitting the mistakes made by his team, both in attack and defence.
Patna, as a result of the match, lost their position at the top of the points table to Puneri Paltan, who beat Bengal Warriors. Arjun Singh was on point when he said that his team made mistakes in the defence and the raiders had a bad day as well, something that wasn’t expected from the Pirates.
Talking to the media after the match, Singh was asked what went wrong for Patna in the match, as no one expected them to lose the match in such a manner after showing some tremendous performances on the court this season in their previous seasons. He said: “There were some obvious mistakes made by our defence squad and raiders which should not have happened.”
Pardeep Narwal, the poster boy of Patna who has been having a dream run this season, was relatively quiet and scored just 3 raid points for his side. He had a disappointing outing, something that is rare for the young lad as he has had breath taking performances in previous matches and collected points for his team at will. However, most of his raids went empty against Delhi, who had Sachin Shingade to mark him and stop him in his attempts to score raid points.
Delhi performed better than Patna and the team was in phenomenal form as every player contributed to the victory. The team from Delhi did well to stop the Pirates’ raiders dead in their tracks. Sachin Shingade, Sanket Chavan and Suresh Kumar made life difficult for the Patna raiders, who found it difficult to make a move as most of their raids went unsuccessful. The Patna defence looked pretty brittle as Dharmaraj Cheralathan and Fazel Atrachali, star defenders in their own right, could not do much to prevent the Delhi raiders from scoring points.
Singh praised Delhi on their show in the match by saying: “Can't deny that the other team was better today, they were in good form today. Also each team is very defensive and competitive this year.”
Overconfidence could have had been a factor for their loss, as the team was on a dream run before this match, having won all of their matches so far. The team looked sluggish on the court and the coordination was not up to the mark. Things weren’t going according to plan, and Patna looked disheartened in the match.
When Karthik, the coordinator of the team was asked if overconfidence hindered the team’s performance, he replied: “No, it wasn't the overconfidence, not at all. It just happened, the other team was better prepared, and now we will have to work more and get back on the track soon.”
Sagar Bandekar, the coach of Dabang Delhi, was a proud man after the match, and rightly so. He said: “Yes, the team had special preparation for this match. Young lads were brought in the team for this match. The defense and the raiders both were brought in form to give their best, they acted as per the directions and the result are here.”
Delhi showed a great display of their skills as both their defence and offense clicked for them which gave them a much deserved victory in the match. When asked about what worked in favour of Delhi, he said: “All the players were good today and were in complete form today. In the third raid itself Vikas took a dive and got us score, Sanket , Manjeet , Sachin all played well. All the moments in the match was good, the team performed well. Sachin didn't let the raiders move in the court.”
Patna play their next game against Jaipur Pink Panthers in their last match at home, and would want to learn from this match and rectify their mistakes, and bounce back into the tournament by having a good show against Jaipur. An improvement in their performance can help them defend their title if they play well. Delhi will have to win all of their subsequent matches in the future, if they hope to book a berth in the semi-finals.
