Pro Kabaddi League 2018 Match 9, U.P. Yoddha vs Patna Pirates: Player Ratings
The Pro Kabaddi League 2018 action carried on as we entered the final day of the Chennai Leg as the UP Yoddha faced off against the defending champions Patna Pirates at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium.
The Pirates came into the match on the back of a humiliating loss against the host side Tamil Thalaivas on the opening day of the competition. The captain Pardeep Narwal initially found it tough to get going but slowly found his footing in the match scoring a Super 10. Deepak Narwal, the second raider struggled but a young Manjeet came through on his promise delivering good raid points for the side.
UP Yoddha come into this match after beating the same opponents that the Pirates lost out to, the Tamil Thalaivas. In that match, UP Yoddha dominated proceedings on the mat for a majority of the match and went into a good lead in the first half courtesy their raiding firepower. However, they handed the Thalaivas too much leeway in the second half as the team led by Ajay Thakur mounted a short comeback in the match. Tonight, the UP Yoddha will be hoping their raiding unit - Rishank Devadiga, Prashant Kumar Rai and Shrikant Jadhav all deliver on the mat for them. The defence will be manned by Sagar Krishna and Nitesh Kumar with cover defender Narender hoping to replicate his form from the last match yet again.
In a closely fought encounter, the Patna Pirates ended up winning the match with a 43-41 win as the match went down right to the wire. We take a look at the player ratings from the encounter.
UP Yoddha
Rishank Devadiga - (8/10)
Rishank Devadiga played the role of the lead raider as well as the captain on the mat for UP. He did well in the first half scoring a lot of points but had a dry second half in comparison.
Prashant Kumar Rai - (7/10)
Prashant Kumar Rai had a brilliant first match and started tonight with a good run of raid points. However, as the game progressed his hit rate went down and was tackled out a number of times.
Shrikant Jadhav - (9/10)
The young raider was a very enterprising raider for the UP Yoddhas as he went in for the crucial do-or-die raids and almost always came out with the points. He was very smart in his raiding using his speed very well to outfox the Patna defence on a number of occasions and scored a Super 10 in the match.
Amit - (4/10)
Amit took the place of Jeeva Kumar in the lineup in the defensive cover position for the UP Yoddha. He did not manage a single tackle point.
Narender - (5/10)
The cover defender looked a tad overexposed in this match as he was too eager in going in for the tackles and thus conceded some points. However, he was good with his combination tackles and contributed well to the team.
Nitesh Kumar - (7/10)
The right corner for the UP Yoddha started the match on a strong note getting the star man Pardeep Narwal with a great ankle hold. Throughout the entire match, he had the number of Pardeep on the mat and got him out a number of times.
Sagar Krishna - (5/10)
The left corner of the UP Yoddha defence scored tackle points in the match and did well with his assists for the tackles put in by the other defenders.
Substitutes:
Sachin Kumar - (1/10)
The substitute defender was brought on for one vs two situations against Pardeep Narwal but he was hasty in his tackling and did not perform well.
Rohit Kumar Chaudhary - (2/10)
The young man came on at the start of the second half as the last man raiding for the UP side. He managed a bonus point but was tackled by the defence for the all-out.