Defending champions Jaipur Pink Panthers and the Gujarat Giants continued their rich vein of form as the two teams won their respective Pro Kabaddi League matches on Saturday.
The Pink Panthers rode on skipper Arjun Deshwal’s 17-point haul to defeat U Mumba 41-31 at the DOME by NSCI in Mumbai. The Pink Panthers’ Deshwal and Ankush (six tackle points) and U Mumba’s Guman Singh (13 raid points) were the star performers of the game.
The home side struggled to get going in the first half and relied heavily on Guman’s raiding. He scored 10 of U Mumba’s 13 points in the first 20 minutes as the defence managed just one tackle point. The Pink Panthers were also shaky in defence but their three-man raiding unit of Deshwal, V Ajith and Bhavani Rajput came to their rescue.
A multi-point raid from Deshwal produced the first all out of the game as the Pink Panthers took a 12-5 lead in the seventh minute. A few minutes later, Ajith struck and the Pink Panthers had twice as many points as their opponents did at 18-9.
Guman, U Mumba’s main hope, brought up his Super 10 in the 16th minute and also crossed the 300 raid points mark, but his side continued to trail by nine points at the break.
Yet another multi-point raid from Deshwal early in the second half saw him reach a Super 10 and become the first raider to cross 100 raid points this season. It took the Pink Panthers eight minutes into the second half to inflict an ALL OUT as Deshwal’s two-point raid and Reza Mirbagheri’s tackle put them in the driver’s seat. They led 33-19 with 12 minutes left on the clock.
U Mumba mounted a late fightback, courtesy of big raids from Jai Bhagwan and Alireza Mirzaeian, but it was too little too late for them to catch up to the Pink Panthers’ ever-increasing lead. The Pink Panthers eventually handed U Mumba their first loss of their home leg.
Giants beat Titans
The Gujarat Giants beat Telugu Titans 37-30 to rise to second on the table. The Giants defender Deepak Singh collected an outstanding nine tackle points to help his side register a comeback victory. The Titans meanwhile remain rooted to the bottom of the table, and are now on a four-match losing streak.
Pawan Sehrawat kicked off the game, right off the whistle registered a super raid to give his side the lead. A long back and forth ensued, with both teams trading raids at regular intervals. The Titans raiding was hugely dependent on Sehrawat and true to form he registered over half his team’s raid points in the first half.
While the Giants formidable defence kept the Titans on their toes, in the final five minutes of the half, it was the Titans defending that kept them alive. Facing an all-out, the Titans raider S Sanjeevi capitalised on a series of errors by the Giants defence to stay in the game. From there they produced three super tackled one after the other to not just stave an all-out but also keep the lead at the break.
Despite that first half resistance, it didn’t take the Giants too long into the second period to inflict the first all out of the game as the Titans saw their lead cut down to a single point.
The lead did not last long as the Giants ramped up their gameplay, and the Titans, for their part faltered. Too many defensive errors, and their inability to revive Sehrawat saw them suffer a second all out with less than a quarter of the game to play.
Once in the lead, the Giants did not loosen their grip, as they wrapped up a brilliant and deserved come from behind victory.