Looking back in time, it’s hard to believe that Bengaluru Bulls’ Pawan Sehrawat raided a total of just 24 times in Season 5 for the Gujarat Fortunegiants, scored just nine raid points and averaged just one point per game.
A footnote with the Fortunegiants, Sehrawat was repurchased in the Season 6 auction by the team that gave him his debut in the Pro Kabaddi league, and the raider repaid their faith with perhaps the greatest two-season run of any player in the history of the league.
At the start of Season 6, Sehrawat had 74 points in the Pro Kabaddi league and ranked seventh among points scorers in league history. Two seasons and 48 appearances later, Sehrawat is sixth all-time with 716 points to his name, ahead of names such as teammate Rohit Kumar, seven-year veteran Rishank Devadiga and retired superstar Anup Kumar.
Sehrawat has scored 642 points in the last two campaigns at a massive average of 13.4 points per game. To put this into perspective, only Pardeep Narwal has managed to average more points in a single season, let alone two, than Sehrawat has since Season 6. The Patna Pirates’ skipper averaged 14.19 points per game in Season 5 when he scored 369 points in 26 matches. Sehrawat broke the single-season average raid-point record in Season 7 with 360 points in 24 matches – an average of 14.42.
The Bengaluru Bulls ace is the only player with over 10 Super Raids in each of the past two campaigns and has scored 31 Super 10s - the most in the league, and one more than Pardeep Narwal and Dabang Delhi K.C.’s Naveen Kumar.
By winning the Best Raider award this season, Pawan joined Pardeep in becoming the only players in Pro Kabaddi history to have won the Most Valuable Player Award, the Best Raider award and the league title.
He has been hunting down Pardeep’s record one at a time and broke perhaps the most difficult one when he scored 39 points against Haryana Steelers, beating the Patna Pirates skipper’s previous mark of 34 that he set in Season 5.
With his performances since Season 6, Sehrawat may have equalled, if not surpassed, Pardeep Narwal as the best raider in Pro Kabaddi. Barring any injuries, Sehrawat is on course to add himself to the 1000-point club in Pro Kabaddi next season.
But, irrespective of what happens in Season 8, it is impossible to compare Sehrawat’s run in the past two seasons to any that was previously seen in the Pro Kabaddi league.
Feature image courtesy: ProKabaddi.com
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