Continuing its unbeaten run, Patna Pirates edged past Bengal Warriors 36-31 in its Pro Kabaddi League match here today.
The win takes Pirates to the top with 25 points while Bengal Warriors with 21 points remain in second place. Bengal Warriors were on the verge of getting full control of the match when it was leading 12-6 and with substitute Rajesh Mondal the lone man coming remaining for Patna.
But Rajesh came up with a 4-point super raid including a bonus. With three of its players revived, the Patna Pirates were given a huge lifeline.
Even then the home team managed to go up from 12-10 to 15-10 when came the second big blunder of the match for the home boys.
This time the man who caused damage of four points was the tall army man Rohit Kumar, who pulled off a stunning raid. The teams trooped off for the break with Warriors leading 17-16.
Having missed the all-out, Bengal Warriors paid heavily after the break when it was wiped off by a Patna attack. The team fell into arrears at 17-21 in the 22nd minute. After that it trailed for the remainder of the match.
A second all-out put Warriors further behind at 31-23 in the 31st minute. The failure of Mahesh Goud was the host’s undoing. Nitin Tomar strove manfully and so did the Korean Jang Kun Lee with nine points each but the not so good showing of the otherwise reliable defence resulted in a loss for the home side.
Pirates have to thank their stand in captain Sandeep Narwal who is leaving tonight to join the Indian team for the South Asian Games with teammate Rohit Kumar. In that context both served their team well to give an important win. It was quite evident that the decision of the Patna Pirates coach to withdraw Manpreet Singh proved beneficial. It turned the match gradually in their favour.
Sandeep and Rohit were in the thick of action today. The latter had a tally of 11 with 10 raid points and 1 tackle point. Sandeep had 6 tackle points with one super tackle.
The shy-looking Pardeep Narwal was once again effective while contributing 7 raid points. Rajesh’s tally was 5 points with that one super raid.
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