Narwal shines in Pirates’ 55-38 win over Gujarat to defend PKl title for 3rd straight time
The undisputed star of Pro Kabaddi league season 5, Patna Pirates' Pardeep Narwal lived upto the expectations in the big Final to give his team their third successive PKl title.
It wasn't simply the number of points he scored — 19 from 24 raids — but the moments in which he got them that added further glory to his now-legendary reputation. He excelled in crunch situations and rose to the occasion when his team needed him most.
And yet at the start of the match, it seemed that Gujarat FortuneGiants had his measure as they raced to a 9-3 lead in the sixth minute with an all-out, having tackled Narwal successfully in one of his early raids.
Pardeep got after the mark with a bonus point soon after but it was evident that the man with 350 raid points coming into the match was being cautious in his forays as he didn't venture too deep in the corners guarded by the two Iranian pillars of FortuneGiants — Abozar Mighani and Fazel Atrachali.
But Patna started their fightback in right earnest and their other key raider Monu Goyat too got a bonus point in the very next raid as Pirates looked to rebuild.
It was strange to see both teams looking more efficient in their weaker aspect - Patna in defence and Gujarat in raiding. This was evident with Patna getting two successful tackles in this period while Fortune Giants' Sachin raiding very adventurously.
With Pardeep getting tackled again and Monu not looking too dangerous either, Patna turned to their unfancied raider Vijay and he repaid the faith shown in him with two successful raids including one which crucially took out Mighani in the 14th minute.
Patna now had an opening in the game and they barged through with full force through, who else, but Narwal. In the absence of Mighani, he finally found his mojo with a five-point super raid in the 15th minute to inflict an all-out on Gujarat and levelling scores 15-15.
The momentum change was clearly evident as the tables were now turned on Gujarat and Patna were leading. Patna's raiders, especially Pardeep chose to focus on the middle of Gujarat's defence and not taking undue risk with Mighani and Fazel.
The first half ended with Patna leading 21-18 and though the gap wasn't too big to fill, Pardeep's return to his groove signaled big danger for Gujarat.
And that danger materialized in the second half as Narwal returned to his usual self, first foxing Mahendra Rajput, who looked the best raider for Gujarat at that moment, to remove him and then with just the two Iranian defenders left in Gujarat's half, taking out Fazel as well.
A second all-out was achieved by Patna in the fourth minute of the half giving them a 27-21 lead.
But Gujarat were not going to give up so easily and soon after defanged the Patna attack by removing both Pardeep and Monu in quick succession. Once again Vijay stepped up for Patna and helped bring Pardeep back onto the mat. He came up with another five-point raid to deliver a second all-out on Gujarat in the 12th minute as the lead for Patna swelled to 38-26.
Gujarat still didn't give up and thanks to good raids from Mahendra and Chandran Ranjit twice reduced Patna to one man on the mat.
That man on both occasions was Narwal who seemed to ask his team to trust him and not panic.
On both occasions, one being a do-or-die raid, he single-handedly revived his team and crushed Gujarat's hopes. If there was any doubt left about Pardeep's greatness, he quashed it by the way he helped his team in those situations.
Patna were also coming up with some good tackles to further their opponent's misery. Jawahar was especially impressive with two great dashes to eliminate Gujarat's raiders.
Soon, Gujarat lost hope and when Abozar was the only man left on the mat, rather than substituting him for the next raid, their coach Manpreet Singh despondently asked him to raid himself.
Abozar was tackled and with this all-out in the 19th minute, Patna had guaranteed themselves a third successive title winning 55-38 in the end.