Pro Kabaddi League: Haryana Steelers brush aside Patna Pirates 43-32

Pro Kabaddi League 2018: Despite the absence of skipper Monu Goyat, the Steelers defeated Patna comfortably in a match where Patna skipper Pardeep Narwal became the second man in PKL history to reach the 700 raid point mark

Haryana Steelers crushed host Patna Pirates 43-32 to register their third win in this year's edition of Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) in Patna on Sunday. Despite the absence of skipper Monu Goyat, the Steelers defeated Patna comfortably. Patna's skipper Pardeep Narwal got his 700th raid point. However, he couldn't inspire his team to a victory. Steelers' Vikas Kandola and Naveen made great raids to get Super 10s while Kuldeep Singh made the efforts in the defensive department. Pardeep started the raids for Patna and acquired a quick raid point to become the second man in PKL history to reach the 700 raid point mark. Both team's raiders made great starts as they got raid points in each raid. Vikas tried to get more out of the moment in the 5th minute after Jaideep went out of bounds and saw Vikas Kale dash him out of court to make the score 4-5 in favour of Haryana Steelers. Vikas and Mayur started to make great raids as they started to increase the lead to 5 points by the 14th minute with 10-15 in Haryana's favour. Patna didn't let Haryana run away with the lead in half time as they came back strongly to reduce the gap to 2 points with 15-17 being the score on half time. The second half saw Haryana completely dominating the hosts with constant raid and tackle points. They increased the lead to 6 points as Jaideep made the mistake of making a jersey pull in the 26th minute to deny Patna a Super Tackle. By the 27th minute, Patna Pirates conceded their first All Out of the day as Vikas got Vijay and Jawahar to make it 28-20 in the visitor's favour. Naveen made a Super Raid to take away Jawahar, Vikas Kale and Vijay out of the mat to make it 31-21 in the 28th minute. Patna Pirates were inflicted another all out in the 33rd minute to take the gap out of their reach completely as they trailed 23-38. Haryana continued to dominate with the help of Vikas and Naveen. A bad defensive performance by Patna Pirates just helped Haryana even more. Patna tried to reduce the gap. However, the deficit was too large to reduce as the match ended with Patna Pirates losing to Haryana Steelers 32-43.