As the famous saying goes — gold medals are not really made of gold, they are made of sweat, determination and hard-work. And these were the qualities possessed by Patna Pirates’ players on Saturday to win the third season of Star Sports Pro Kabaddi league title, beating defending champions U Mumba 31-28 here in a highly contested and competitive final.
Till the final whistle, the crowd — along with the players and support management of both the teams — were on the edge of their seat, biting their nails as to who would lift the coveted trophy.
In the see-saw battle towards the end of the match Pradeep Narwal of Patna Pirates clinched the all important crucial point in his raid that sealed the win for them. And as the whistle blew for one last time, Pirates players jumped in ecstasy and celebrated with happiness and tears of joys running through their eyes.
Rohit Kumar amassed eight points in the match and he was assisted well by Sandeep Narwal’s brilliant all-round effort which got the team seven points. Mohit Chhillar’s 6 defensive points and Anup Kumar’s 8 raid points went in vain as the Pirates were crowned champions of Season three.
After three minutes of action, both the teams were level at two each, but that was just the lull before the storm. Patna Pirates stunned the defending champions with their attacking play in the next 10 minutes. U Mumba had no answer to the Pirates’ attack as they suffered the first all out of the match in the 7th minute. The Pirates defence led by Sandeep Narwal and brilliant raiding by Rohit Kumar made it 10-2 in their favour.
U Mumba had the perfect opportunity to level the score in the second half with Patna down to just three men after the restart. However, Sandeep Narwal returned successfully from his raid while Shabeer Bappu was stopped in his tracks as the Pirates stopped the rot and levelled the number of people on the mat. By the 25th minute, Patna had increased their lead to 10 points.
With 10 minutes to go, Pirates were leading by just 3 points. Shabeer’s and Anup’s successful raids made it a 1-point game, but Patna Pirates restored their 3-point lead by getting Bappu out in the 35th minute. U Mumba levelled the score in the 39th minute through Anup.
However, that was the closest the defending champions got as Patna Pirates won three consecutive points to ensure that they would take the trophy home with them.
Paltan finish third
Puneri Paltan finished third by beating fellow semi-final debutants Bengal Warriors 31-27. With this win, they took a 4-3 lead in the overall head to head between the two teams. Jang Kun lee’s 9 points went in vain as Deepak Niwas Hooda scored nine points to slay the Warriors.
Bengal Warriors made a sure but sedate start to the match going 4-0 up with Mahendra Rajput coming successful from two do or die raids and the Pune raiders Surendra Singh and Ajay Thakur falling to Umesh Mhatre and Bajirao Hodage in rival territory. But once Jang Kun lee got super-tackled by Manjeet Chhillar, Puneri Paltan were in business. Deepak Niwas Hooda with four raid points and Chhillar too adding three more points with one raid point the side from Western India got their rivals all-out by the 16th minute.
Mahendra Singh Rajput restored parity and Bajirao Hodage put Bengal in the lead with a super tackle on Deepak. However, Ajay Thakur and Manjeet completed the all out on the Warriors in the 16th minute as Pune led 11-7. The star of the half, Deepak Hooda, continued his good form and rounded off the half with three points in two raids as the Paltan led the Warriors by seven points at the break.
With five minutes to go, the Paltan led by four points, but Bengal had just four men on the court. The Paltan increased their lead to 6 points in the 38th minute, but Bajirao Hodage and lee combined to bring down Deepak in a super tackle. However, the Paltan held on in the final minute to win by four points to assure a podium finish for the first time in their history.