Haryana Steelers broke table toppers Gujarat Fortunegiants’ seven-match unbeaten run with a dominating 42-36 win in the Pro-Kabaddi League at the Netaji Indoor Stadium on Saturday, reported PTI.
In the second match of the day, host city team Bengal Warriors settled for a 26-all tie against UP Yoddha. Trailing 11-14 at the break, Bengal Warriors bounced back to make it 25-24 towards the end.With the tie, they extended their unbeaten run to six matches, two points clear of UP (33) at the top of Zone B table.
In the first match, Gujarat were eyeing their first win over Haryana in three outings and had a solid seven-point lead at half time. However, the Steelers upped the ante in the last eight minutes with a fine all-out by Wazir Singh (nine points). Prasanth Kumar Rai was the architect of Haryana’s win with 14 raid points and two tackle points as he and Singh combined well to script a brilliant turnaround.
Gujarat, however, held on to their Zone A lead with 42 points from 11 matches. But, their only tie and two losses have come against Haryana. Haryana now have 28 points from eight outings with four wins.
Gujarat were watchful from the start and had a slender one point advantage (4-3) in early part of the game. Sachin was at his best as he continued to score points on his incisive raids to stretch their lead to 15-10. Gujarat raced to 20-13 lead at half-time.
But Singh powered Haryana to four points to make it 28-25 before Rai’s raid enabled them gave them the lead. From there on there was no looking back for Haryana as Singh’s all-out raid with five minutes left virtually sealed Gujarat’s hope for a fightback.