Fazel Atrachali notched his 400th tackle point on Wednesday in the process of Puneri Paltan beating the Tamil Thalaivas 35-34 at the Pro Kabaddi League season nine match at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune on Thursday.
In the first match of the evening, Bengaluru Bulls laboured to a 36-33 win over the Haryana Steelers.
Akash Shinde shone for Pune notching a Super 10 while Aslam Inamdar and Atrachali scored six and five points respectively. Narender notched a Super 10 for the Thalaivas.
Much like the first time these two met in this leg, the Thalaivas were the ones off to a quick start and had rallied into a lead very early. Pune’s raiders by contrast, struggled to make any impact, registering a mere seven points in the first half.
The one silver lining for the Paltan and the home fans came via Fazel Atrachali, who reached a personal milestone in the half. Prior to their first encounter, the Iranian legend, then on 397 points, said he would love to make Narender his 400th tackle point — the first defender to do so in the league.
Alas, in a bruising first meeting it did not come to pass as Fazel was stranded with just the one point in the game.
On Wednesday, he got his 400th point, and duly it came on a Narender raid. Despite that though, the Thalaivas went into the break leading 18-12.
That Atrachali milestone galvanized the Paltan defence in the second half, as the home team inched their way back into the game.
In the other match, Neeraj Narwal missed out on a Super 10 but his nine raid points capped off a good team win by the Bengaluru Bulls. Meetu Sharma scored a Super 10 for the Steelers with Manjeet scoring eight points but it wasn’t enough as the Steelers remained in 11th place in the points table.