Pardeep Narwal produced an outstanding essay of successful raids to help Patna Pirates outclass Jaipur Pink Panthers 47-21 in an inter-zonal round of the Pro Kabaddi League season 5 here at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here on Tuesday.
Narwal excelled in his agility and court-craft to give the Patna Pirates a big advantage right from the start. The defending champion got Panthers all-out by the sixth minute of the match after Narwal completed a super raid scalping four Panthers’ players at one go.
Scorecard and play-by-play commentary
The 20-year-old also completed a personal milestone docking 100 raid points to be the first player of this season to pass the century mark.
The Pirates, which lost its previous outing against the host Bengal Warriors, took control over the proceedings from that point and never looked back in the match. Narwal continued to torment the Panthers’ defence, which looked clueless against the aggression of the Haryana import of the Pairates.
From 11-2, which was the score at the time of the first all out, Pirates ran up a lead of 19-9 at the end of the first half with Narwal alone tallying nine points from a flurry of successful raids.
As Narwal, with a fine support from his colleague Monu Goyat, grew in confidence, Panthers seemed to lose its cohesion completely in the second half. The defending champion faltered greatly in the attack where none of its raiders could find much success.
Ajit Singh, who came in as a substitute, was the best raider for the Panthers tallying just eight raid points from 16 raids.
This came as a poor juxtaposition to Pirates best attacker – Narwal – who tallied a total of 21 points from 22 raids. Monu Goyat was the next best scorer for the winner picking 10 points from 15 raids. The Pirates, which got the Panthers all out on three occasions in the second half, tallied 33 points from nine matches to remain in the second spot in the Zone B.
The Pink Panthers netted 28 points from nine to drop to the fourth spot in the Zone A.
The result: Patna Pirates 47 (Pradeep Narwal 21, Monu Goyat 10) bt Jaipur Pink Panthers 21 (Ajit Singh 8).
Steelers beat Warriors
In the other match played later in the evening, Haryana Steelers beat host Bengal Warriors 36-29 to move into the second spot in the Zone A standings.
Bengal Warriors, which trailed 11-19 at half time, made some recovery in the second half and narrowed the lead to 28-32. But the Steelers held on to the advantage till the end with a overall good performance to ensure the win.
Steelers tallied 33 points from nine matches while Bengal Warriors continued on top of Zone B with 41 points from 12 matches.
The result: Haryana Steelers 36 (Wazir Singh 11) bt Bengal Warriors 29 (Maninder Singh 14).
