Puneri Paltan holds Gujarat Giants in a thrilling contest of 31-31
Gujarat Giants calmed down the marching storm of Puneri Paltan as the thrilling contest ended on a 31-31 scoreline and Paltan registered their first tie of the Pro Kabaddi season eight campaign. Young raiding spearheads HS Rakesh from Gujarat and Mohit Goyat from Pune notched well-deserved Super 10s while in-form Sombir Gulia delivered another High 5 performance for the ‘Bhaari Paltan’.
Both teams turned up for this clash after registering thumping wins in their previous fixture. Hence both coaches avoided any changes in the Starting 7 to retain the winning combination. While Gujarat gaffer Manpreet Singh kept super-sub Pardeep Kumar on the substitute bench to have him as a surprise factor.
Puneri Paltan kick-started the encounter in the style as Mohit got in-form Girish Ernak in his first raid while Sombir caught Rakesh in his net on the following raid. Gujarat raider Ajay was given a dash-out by the ground referees but the decision was overturned by Gujarat’s review as the Services raider was granted the first Super Raid of the match. Then the rest of the work was done by consecutive single-point raids of Rakesh and gutsy tackles from the defensive line as the Giants inflicted all-out in the ninth minute of the first-half action.
Gujarat forced an early all-out on the Maharashtrian outfit after recovering from the circumstances where they were down to two men on the mat. The pace of the game was slowed down by both sides at this point as the Giants successfully protected their lead and the first-half whistle was blown on the scoreline of 21-16.
During the half-time break, Manpreet advised Ajay to attempt more bonus and touch raids while Anup strictly instructed his defenders to stop the multi-point raids from the Gujarat invaders. Manpreet replaced Mahendra Ganesh Rajput (MGR) with super-sub Pardeep to keep the flow of raid points from all dimensions in the second half action. A crucial review by Pune disallowed Girish’s tackle on Aslam Inamdar due to invalid jersey-pulling and boosted the confidence of the Paltan roster.
This incident brought Pune back to the winning equation as Gujarat’s lead was narrowed down to none and the strategic timeout was taken on an equal score of 27-27 when only five minutes remaining on the clock. Pune’s skinny assassin Mohit smartly converted a Do-or-Die raid into a successful one and brought up his seventh ‘Super 10’ of the debut season smoothly.
Pune vice-captain Vishal Bharadwaj finally managed to tackle Rakesh and gave a crucial one-point lead to the orange side in the dying minutes of the game. Then the Services stalwart Ajay Kumar went for the final raid of the game and an advance attempt of ankle-hold from all-rounder Aslam gifted Gujarat a precious point, thus the action was called off.
Pune was trailing by six points behind the Giants at one stage of the game but the raging Paltan bounced back in the decisive moments and equaled the scoreline from nowhere. Goyat completed a hat-trick of Super 10s by scoring 10 raid points consisting of seven touchpoints and three bonuses. Paltan has another hat-trick hero, right-corner Sombir who claimed third consecutive High 5 and is having a tackle strike-rate of 90.48% since the last three fixtures.
On the other hand, the Ahmedabad-based franchise was in the driving seat throughout the game. The lack of accountability once again struck Manpreet’s fauj and Gujarat almost bottled the lead when they needed it the most. Credits to the experienced face Ajay who leveled the scoreline and saved Gujarat’s hopes for the playoffs finish.
Three match-points from this fixture means Gujarat has successfully retained its stance at the sixth position of the points table. With three games in hand, Puneri Paltan is currently on 55 points and they will be aiming for maximum points from the remaining fixtures to advance through the next round.