Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: Five talking points from Day 15 of PKL 5
One of the most highly anticipated matches of Season 5 produced action worthy of the top billing that it received as UP Yoddha and Patna Pirates went head to head in a tightly contested encounter where the former enjoyed the upper hand for most part of the match but were undone by some nerves in the dying moments to concede a tie. The defence did its homework well to keep Pardeep Narwal quiet but Narwal, being the superstar that he is, made up for all of it with some heroic raiding in the last few minutes to help his team tie the match.
Despite being another action packed game, the next match between Gujarat Fortunegiants and Jaipur Pink Panthers seemed a dull affair after the high octane clash. Both the teams looked conservative with their raiding and the best of the moments came from the defence that helped Gujarat register their third consecutive victory in their home leg.
#1 Pardeep kept quiet before late blitz
Whoever is working as the analyst with the UP Yoddha might soon find himself in demand once the tournament gets over. The team from the north was the one that stopped Rohit Kumar from giving his team a hat trick of wins when they kept him quiet in their match against Bengaluru Bulls. They had a bigger fish, (or let’s just call him the whale after today's performance) to take care of on Sunday and they did a great job at it, a job that showed that the team analyst is helping the team with the homework pretty well.
Pardeep Narwal was left brooding for more than 20 minutes from the sidelines as most of his raid attempts were foiled for the first 35 minutes. Interestingly, it was not the likes of Rajesh Narwal and Jeeva Kumar who led the defence in foiling his raids but a young Pankaj who was extremely impressive on the night. It was as if whatever Pardeep had up his sleeve, Pankaj had an antidote for it. Eventually, when Pardeep got the better of him, he had to lose his shirt as Pankaj’s failed tackle meant that Pardeep escaped with only his shirt left behind for the defender.
However, eventually Pardeep had his man in the dying moments and that turned the game on its head. But his last few minutes blitz can’t take anything away from the good work done by the team’s defence as his raid strike rate was merely 50% on the night.