Pardeep Narwal, the ‘Most Valuable Player’ of the fifth season of the ProKabaddi League, is only 20 years old. One’ll never think it, looking at him. He seems older.
In pressers, he’s reserved. One wonders if he’s a thorough chap, duty-bound and business-like. It’s a lot of fellows with their pens, he says. He’s in front of them, exposed. Strangely, he doesn’t feel the same when he’s playing. It’s hard to say if he enjoys the limelight, for, on-court, he causes as little uproar as a jellyfish. Even if he’s had a “lottery prize” raid.
“He’s not the kind of player who gets you just one point when he raids. He’s started a new trend. He’s consistently scoring more than two or three points for every raid he makes. Something even the more experienced players couldn’t [manage]. He goes to raid, and comes out winning a lottery,” says E. Prasad Rao, technical director of the ProKabaddi league. Well-known as ‘Kabaddi’ Rao, he’s also the technical director of the International and the Asian Kabaddi Federations.
He sees Narwal as a harbinger of a new generation of players redefining the fitness and playing standards. “If you look at Narwal, he’s supremely fit. Skills aside, fitness is a reason why the younger players outshone the senior players this time.”
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A farmer’s son, Narwal first played the game at seven, inspired by his uncle, Ravinder Narwal, a State-level player, and has been in love with it ever since.
During the wait for a one-on-one interview with the prodigy, long-time friend and frequent roommate Virender Singh, also of Patna Pirates, gets talking about him and the move that is all the rage in the kabaddi world.
Virender, who has known him for six years now, says Narwal was introduced to the ‘dubki’ by his coach Naresh, under whom he trains in his village of Rindhana in Haryana. Narwal is now synonymous with the ‘dubki’, a feint he’s made his own.
“There was this State-level player, who was good at this move,” says Virender. “His coach saw him play and told Narwal about it. Narwal was so fascinated that he learnt the move from his coach and went on to master it.”
Narwal banters with Singh from afar, and approaches, giggling.
“He locks me in the bathroom at times and has a good laugh about it,” Virender says.
For the next half-an-hour or so, Narwal seems a fun-loving kid who prowls about the place and needs a reproving eye, or has to make an effort himself, to be contained.
He is light-hearted, and has sneaky, funny chats with his friend whenever there is a break in the questioning. At times, the translator who is mediating, has to remind him that he is in the midst of an interview he has to complete.
“I have fun on the mat,” he says. Seeing this version of Narwal, one gets a sense of his philosophy. He isn’t the obsessing kind, yet he’s ambitious. He does his bit, enjoys what he does, doesn’t fuss about success.
But one can only get so far trying to analyse a player’s phenomenal form. Whatever Narwal says he did or does to stand out, it isn’t sufficient explanation for what one saw him do on-court. How can his beastly, epic 8-point raid in the eliminator against Haryana Steelers be explained? He was “in the zone”, perhaps.
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“Angrez,” he says, when asked for the name of the State player who was good at the ‘dubki’. When asked to spell the name, he shrugs, says “Angrez” again, and smiles.
Naresh advised him to modify his ‘dubki’. “Now that almost everyone is doing it, he asked me to bring something new to it. Even my coach in the league, Ram Mehar Singh (Patna Pirates), thought so,” he says.
‘Dubki’ is an escape technique. It’s a duck, and a dive or plunge through two defenders who form a chain. The forceful, flexible body movement to swiftly power through is what matters. Narwal also does the jump over the chain.
His addition to the ‘dubki’ was a turn, which he worked on while bettering the basic body movement. In this, he feigns to touch a defender on one side, making all the defenders commit to that side, and with a quick diagonal turn, touches an unwary defender who’s closed in before making a ducking getaway.
The innovation shows how kabaddi’s techniques are evolving, and heightening the players’ ambitions, especially in raiding. For, Narwal says, “I want to break Rahul Chaudhuri’s record – most raid points in the league.” This, after he had set the following records: the only player to score more than 300 points in a single season, and the most points by a raider in a match (34).
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Narwal’s popularity can be attributed almost entirely to the league, a platform to showcase talent, and its television viewership. “I didn’t know this Narwal before PKL,” says ‘Kabaddi’ Rao. “And I’m a National selector!”
It’s largely because of the PKL that Narwal made it to the National squad for the 2016 World Cup. “Television has played a huge part in these players and the playing techniques becoming well-known,” Rao adds.
And thanks to television, Narwal and the ‘dubki’ will, in turn, inspire other such journeys.
