Pro Kabaddi 2017 Hyderabad leg wrap: Telugu Titans’ struggle at home, Rahul Chaudhari’s milestone, consistent Pardeep Narwal and much more

Match of the week: Gujarat Fortunegiants 27-27 Haryana Steelers: It was a story of two teams who were just not ready to give up. On Wednesday, the Fortunegiants and Steelers gave the Gachibowli crowd a match to savour. There were minutes that belonged completely to Gujarat, only to be followed by those dominated by Haryana. The latter even came back from a 20-13 deficit to level the match 23-23. After that, they went blow for blow and shared the spoils in the end.

Raid of the week: Pardeep Narwal’s Super Raid vs Telugu Titans : The fourth match of the week between Telugu Titans and Patna Pirates can be given a ‘Before and After’ division with Pardeep Narwal’s Super Raid being the dividing line. With just a few minutes left on the clock, the Titans had a two-point lead, the stadium was absolutely rocking and Rahul Chaudhari was just a point away from becoming the first to touch 500 raid points. Enter Pardeep ‘Dupki King’ Narwal. The Titans went for the tackle; Narwal jumped over one defender, rolled another over and treated the third to his dupki before getting back into his half – a good day’s work. The Pirates went into the lead. As it turned out, Narwal had defeated the Titans mentally with that piece of skill as his team went on to win 35-29.

Star Watch: Anup Kumar showed that he truly is Captain Cool with the way he handled that first defeat U-Mumba suffered. Nitin Tomar did not seem to be budged at all by the ‘Most expensive player of the league’ tag, helping his UP Yodha in both the defensive and raiding departments. Meraj Sheykh was stellar in Dabang Delhi’s first match against Jaipur Pink Panthers while the opposition captain Manjeet Chillar cut a frustrated figure. “I made a lot of mistakes and that’s why we lost the match,” he said in the post match press conference. But the man in the spotlight was Rahul Chaudhari and he ended up looking not too good in it. The crowd would erupt every time he would come for a raid and his team seem to be almost completely dependent on him to pull them through. He was able to do that in the first match but has failed since.

Surprise element: Sachin Kumar (Gujarat Fortunegiants): Gujarat Fortunegiants are a team of youngsters. Their captain Sukesh Hegde played second fiddle to Rahul Chaudhari until last season. They have had a good start this time, winning their first match and drawing their second. 18-year-old Sachin Kumar has been a revelation in these two matches. He has got them raid points at crucial moments. The youngster goes into the opposition half and dashes around making defenders jump and hop all around him and then runs back dangerously close to the lobby line. Judging from what was on display in Hyderabad, his gung-ho style of raiding attitude is something that one can expect Gujarat to benefit from this season.