The Gujarat Giants were up against the U Mumba in the second last league fixture of the Pro Kabaddi League Season 8 in ‘Match 131’.
This was a must-win encounter for the Gujarat Giants to make way into the playoffs, early in the day Puneri Paltan had won their game against the Jaipur Pink Panthers to just leave one spot left in the race to playoffs. Faring against U Mumba this was Gujarat’s last opportunity to get into the knockouts. The team looked confident from the early get-go and managed to edge past U Mumba in a 36-33 thriller.
The Gujarat-based franchise will be extremely happy with their performance as the team functioned like a unit pulling off the win against the season two champions. Rakesh Narwal was the star of the show for his team racking up thirteen points to his name, emerging as the top raider for the contest. The raider was tackled just once throughout the entire contest and was a constant threat for U Mumba’s defensive unit. He received great support from Mahender Rajput who picked up seven points to his name.
Girish Ernak spearheaded the defensive unit for his side picking up a Thigh 5 with five tackle points to his name. Iranian Hadi Oshtorak was the next in line with two tackle points against the tally. The defensive unit functioned as a whole with all of their defenders picking up a bare minimum of one tackle point each.
Paresh Bhainwal who has been Gujarat’s leading defender with 47 tackle points to his name, looked a little off-color. The defender had four unsuccessful tackle attempts to his name and could earn just a single tackle point. While the win over the Mumbai-based franchise might have overshadowed his performance, the player will have to come back strong in the playoffs.
U Mumba will be a little disappointed with how the league turned out for them this season, the team started big by thrashing Bengaluru Bulls in their very first game but it was a tough path for them ever since. Inconsistency was the biggest worry for the team as the team dropped a few fixtures in the early stages.
The team also missed out on the services of Abhisekh Singh and V Ajith Kumar for some part of the tournament after being ruled out due to injuries. The team finished 10th on the points table with 55 points to their name in 22 appearances.
Ajith was the leading scorer for the franchise with eleven points to his name, Abhisekh looked completely off colors in the contest and just had a single point to his name. Shivam however filled the shoes of the supporting raider in the contest picking up eight points for his side.
On the other hand, the defensive unit could not get it running since the first half and finished with just tackle points in the entire contest, with Fazel Atrachali emerging as the top defender with three tackle points to his name.
Rakesh attempts to bait in the defender for a touchpoint against U Mumba
The game started with a quick pace as both the teams traded points back and forth with each other in the first few minutes of the contest. The Giants slowly started to pick up the pace over their opponents and gained a four-point lead over their opponents.
The team was quick to capitalize on the momentum as they gained a considerable lead over their opponents inflicting the first all-out upon their opponents in the first half courtesy of a multipoint raid from Rakesh in a super tackle situation. At the end of the first half, the Gujarat-based franchise had a six-point advantage going into the second half of the contest.
Gujarat worked on their performance from the first half and was quick to inflict the second all out of the game gaining a 10-point advantage over their opponents. However, the Mumbai-based franchise came back strong in the second half and was neck to neck with each other for the majority of the second half of the contest as none of the teams were able to outscore the other for the next five minutes.
Mumbai broke the deadlock in the game to return the favor as they inflicted the first all-out upon Giants to close in on the lead. Ajith played a crucial role in the comeback as the raider alongside Shivam started picking off the defenders one after the other but they were unable to get past the mountain of lead built by the Gujarat Giants.
Gujarat was able to get past their opponents in the closing minutes of the contest to qualify for their playoffs with a 36-33 win over their opponents. The team will now be up against the Bengaluru Bulls in the second eliminator this Monday to make their way into the semifinals.