Narwal and his Pirates too good for Bengaluru Bulls

Dubki King Pardeep Narwal scored his third consecutive Super 10 of VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season 5 as Patna Pirates continued their winning run, comfortably beating home side Bengaluru Bulls 46-32 at Nagpur’s Mankapur Indoor Stadium on Sunday. The Bulls had Ravinder Pahal coming back after a fever and would have been looking to put the memories of Saturday’s loss to U.P. Yoddha behind them but it was not to be on a night where the Patna raiders made short work of their defenders and took the game away from them in the blink of an eye.

Bengaluru Bulls had some reason to rejoice in the opening minutes though, as they managed to take out both of Patna Pirates’ primary raiders Pardeep Narwal and Monu Goyat. But the Pirates exhibited how strong their team is even without the duo as Vinod Kumar stepped up to the challenge of reviving the raiders. He shone in both offence and defence, putting in some strong thigh holds and returning with 7 points to show for his all-round efforts.

The Pirates soon returned the favour by taking out Rohit Kumar and star defender Pahal, and inflicting an early All-Out on Bengaluru. Narwal continued his sublime form from the previous games and racked up another Super 10, handing the Bulls their second All-Out in the first half itself. The teams went into half-time with a 23-11 score line in favour of the Pirates.

Narwal kept outsmarting the Bengaluru defence in the second half and the Bulls faced a third All-Out just four minutes into the half. Pahal and Ashish Kumar fought hard for the Bulls and took out Narwal to give their team a glimmer of hope, but Vishal Mane and Vinod Kumar scored consecutive super tackles to erase all hopes of a Bengaluru Bulls comeback. Goyat and Narwal kept scoring at will and inflicted the fourth All-Out of the night on Bengaluru Bulls. The Bulls raiders kept going for the bonus but could do little to affect the final result. A massive 46-32 victory meant the Pirates are looking like the team to beat this season.

With a day’s break coming up, Bengaluru Bulls will hope to recharge completely for their encounter with Telugu Titans on August 8, while defending champions Patna Pirates will next be seen in action in Ahmedabad against U.P. Yoddha on August 13.