The match between Dabang Delhi and Patna Pirates was seen as a raiding slugfest between Pardeep Narwal and Naveen, where both of them excelled. Looking at how the game panned out, the pendulum tilts slightly in favour of Pardeep Narwal.
He scored 18 raid points in the match, 3 points more than Delhi’s young pedigree Naveen Kumar. After a rather drab performance by Patna Pirates in the first half, Pardeep Narwal in the second half lit up the stadium with his super human efforts.
Delhi looked to finish the game easily, but Narwal was about to unleash his storm onto the opposition. From 26-17 in the first half to 38-35 in the second, Narwal was on fire giving Delhi the taste of their own medicine.
But in the end, as we say, Kabaddi is a team game, and though Narwal was exceptional, he lacked adequate support from second string raiders and the defense department.
Delhi finished the home leg with four consecutive wins, concealing the first position. On the other hand, the three time champions Patna Pirates find themselves at the bottom of the pack, with just 3 wins under the belt.
In the post-match press conference, Patna Pirates were represented by skipper Pardeep Singh Narwal and coach Ram Mehar Singh.
Question– Pardeep, you performed exceptionally well, but still Patna lost the match. Does that affect your morale?
Pardeep Narwal– I was disappointed by the mistakes we made in the first half and since then we could never really cover and remained under pressure till the last.
Coach Ram Maher Singh was vocal about Pardeep Narwal’s impact on the game, though, he outlined the small mistake he did in his second last raid of the game, where he returned without getting a point, which sealed the win for the smart Dabang Delhi side.
Singh also spoke about Pirates’ over-reliance on Pardeep Narwal, though he quickly, mentioned similar situations with other teams as well, where they are also heavily driven by their star raiders.
