UP Yoddhas found some form as they defeated Bengaluru Bulls 44-37 in their recent PKL 9 match, at the Kanteerava Stadium on Sunday. Speaking after the win, head coach Jasveer Singh hailed Pardeep Narwal, saying, "After attaining a massive lead in the first half, we wanted to play safe in the second half as we didn’t want any injuries and that’s why Bengaluru picked up a lot of points in the second half. But, I think we played a bit too safe in certain occasions, which was our mistake. The biggest positive for us is that Pardeep is back in form. Our defense unit is also playing very well".
Meanwhile, Narwal after the match, where he scored 14 points, said, "I always look to pick up as many points as possible for my team. Let’s see how many points I can score this season. I’ll try to keep playing well and correcting my mistakes after every match. I’ll try to perform even better than I did against Bengaluru Bulls".
The UP Yoddhas went into the game in ninth position with seven points from three games, on the back of a tight loss against current league leaders Dabang Delhi KC in their previous game, while Bengaluru Bulls were at sixth on the table with 10 points from as many games and with a similar fate from their previous game. In the end, they did well to gain a point from the game and maintain their position on the table.
In form raider Surender Gill was who got the UP Yoddhas off the mark on the day bagging two points with his first raid. But soon it was 3-5 in the favour of Bengaluru Bulls, as both Pardeep Narwal and Surinder Gill were on the bench within the first six minutes. UP Yoddhas regained the lead finally with just over six minutes to go in the first half with yet another two-point raid from Surinder Gill as the scoreboard read 11-7 to their favour.
{{/usCountry}}In form raider Surender Gill was who got the UP Yoddhas off the mark on the day bagging two points with his first raid. But soon it was 3-5 in the favour of Bengaluru Bulls, as both Pardeep Narwal and Surinder Gill were on the bench within the first six minutes. UP Yoddhas regained the lead finally with just over six minutes to go in the first half with yet another two-point raid from Surinder Gill as the scoreboard read 11-7 to their favour.
{{/usCountry}}That heralded a crazy six plus minutes in which star raider Pardeep Narwal took the game by the scruff of the neck after superb defensive team work inflicted a first All Out on the Bengaluru Bulls. Pardeep then came up with a Super Raid of four points and the UP Yoddhas lead widened to 11 points at 21-10. Soon a second All Out came by, the second in four minutes and the UP Yoddhas ended the first-half 14 points ahead at 26-12. Pardeep and Surender ended the half with nine and seven points each.
As the second half commenced, the lead widened to 30-14 and then 36-17, before the Bengaluru Bulls were inflicted their third All Out with 10 minutes of the game left on the clock. By then, the UP Yoddhas had opened up a yawning gap of 20 points with the scores reading 40-20 in their favour.
The Bengaluru Bulls did well to gradually claw back into the game and by the time they called a time-out with just over four minutes left on the clock, the deficit had been narrowed to 16 points with the scores reading 42-26 in UP Yoddhas favour. From then on it was all Bengaluru Bulls and the UP Yoddhas were on the receiving end of an All Out enabling the former to come away with a point from the game.Both Hero of the Match Pardeep Narwal and Surender Gill ended the game with 14 points each.