PKL 2019 | Dabang Delhi vs Bengal Warriors - Good, Bad and Ugly ft. Naveen Kumar, Ravinder Pahal and K Prapanjan
Last evening’s game between Dabang Delhi and Bengal Warriors had a lot of action and it ended with an exciting tie as well. Naveen Kumar continued his brilliant run whereas there were many instances when the players committed silly errors and the momentum kept on shifting from one team to other.
Good
Naveen Kumar’s top performance
Being termed as the next big thing in Indian kabaddi, Naveen Kumar was the star of the team from the national capital once again on Saturday as he scored 11 raid points against Bengal Warriors. It was a top of the table clash with both the teams in the top three on the leader board. And as has been the case in the league so far for Delhi, Naveen led the challenge against the Warriors last evening as well. It was the raider’s sixth super 10 this season from the seven matches that they have played.
The good thing for Delhi is that they have a player who has not only performed consistently from the last season, but has also shown continuous improvement as well. The youngster is taking up the responsibility of the entire team, which also has experienced defenders like Joginder Narwal, Ravinder Pahal, and Vishal Mane, and is also not getting bogged down under pressure. Naveen managed to keep his side in contest in the second half at a time when the defence was leaking points. Naveen was only tackled twice in the last game and his brilliant not-out percentage is still intact.
Bad
Vishal Mane and Ravinder Pahal’s unsuccessful tackles
At one end, the raiding combination of Chandran Ranjit and Naveen doing wonders at the other end, it is their defence that kept on giving away easy points to K Prapanjan and Sukesh Hegde. It was a combined bad show by Ravinder Pahal and Vishal Mane that hampered Delhi’s cause against Bengal last evening and that is a cause of concern for Krishan Kumar Hooda. After going for five unsuccessful tackle attempts in the last game against Puneri Paltan, Pahal had four of them against Bengal. On the other hand, Mane went for three tackle attempts and failed to get those right.
Mane looked lacklustre from the first raid of the match where he was caught napping and Maninder Singh sent him off the mat with a running hand touch. Pahal’s lack of game awareness was visible when, despite Joginder’s warning, he went for an ankle hold against Mohammad Nabibakhsh in the 16th minute of the first half and gave away an easy point to the Iranian. Pahal was almost on the baulk line while trying to stop the Iranian and the advance tackle attempt resulted in an easy point for the opponents.
© PKLWith 10 minutes to go in the game, Mane lost his balance in Nabibakhsh’s raid and had to go off the mat. In the same raid, the Iranian had also got a touch on Pahal by pushing the right corner too deep and taking a touch on him. Not only these two, but Iranian cover Saeid Ghaffari was also involved in a poor tackle attempt against Prapanjan which was initiated by Pahal. The Bengal raider had got a bonus as well and that super raid gave a three-point lead for the Warriors as well. Bengal managed to extend the lead with 2:50 minutes to go in the match when Pahal decided to dive on to the ankle of Prapanjan and eventually ended up gifting away an easy point.
Yesterday’s match proved that despite the team doing well there is a lot to work for their defenders ahead of the home leg and unless the law of averages catches up young Naveen. Joginder and coach Hooda will definitely give it a serious thought and look at the process for some time by not going with the flow of the results going in their favour.
Ugly
K Prapanjan’s act against the spirit of kabaddi
Kabaddi has been a sport which is very emotionally connected and we see the Indian tradition in the indigenous sport as well. Usually, the match officials go with the person who claims a point by taking the oath of the mat and on many occasions, we have seen a raider is given a point only because of the fact that he claimed it. The defenders are also seen agreeing with the raiders and going off the mat on their own.
But, with more competition and more pressure of winning matches in the PKL, we are seeing players deviating away from the “spirit of kabaddi” which is making things ugly on the mat. With Bengal leading 30-29, the last raid of the match was a do or die raid and K Prapanjan came in for that. Just after a few seconds, he attempted a running hand touch on cover defender Ghaffari and was confident of getting the touch as well. Prapanjan claimed the touch and went to stand near the midline while on the other hand, Ghaffari was not convinced at all and kept on claiming that there was no touch.
After the on-field officials went with the Warriors, Delhi went for the review as they, fortunately, had it till the end of the match. The TV replays clearly showed that there was daylight between Ghaffari’s knee and Prapanjan’s finger and the decision was reversed resulting in the game ending in a tie. These incidents are slowly becoming common in the sport these days and that is where the fair play, that many kabaddi payers are proud off, is vanishing from the league.
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