PKL: Fortunegiants overpowers U Mumba

Gujarat Fortunegiants won its second match in four games 39-21 with Rohit Gulia, Sachin, Abozar Mighani and Sukesh Hegde putting up a stellar display.

U Mumba's Kashiling Adake is immobilized by GFG's Sachin's double ankle hold.

Cheered by an excited and vociferous home supporters, Gujarat Fortunegiants (GFG) outplayed and embarrassed former champion U Mumba in Pro Kabaddi in a first ‘Zone A’ match on Friday. GFG won its second match in four games 39-21 with Rohit Gulia, Sachin, Abozar Mighani and Sukesh Hegde putting up a stellar display.

GFG excelled in attack and defence and in under four minutes, it had its famous rival reduced to Anup Kumar’s lone attacks with all his team-mates watching the dire situation from the bench. And two minutes from time, it was a similar situation with substitute Kashiling Adake left to do a difficult task; he earned a point crossing the bonus-point line, but he was brought down by the powerful GFG defence and U Mumba conceded the second ‘all-out points’ in the first half.

GFG led 20-6 at half time with the likes of Hegde, Gulia and Sachin raking points for their side with brilliant ‘running touch’ actions and the Iranian defensive combination in Fazel Atrachali and Abozar Mighani proving to be too good in tackling to bring to nought rival raids. Anup was left powerless in the circumstances, drawing a blank on all his raids and earning just a couple of bonus points.

Deft touches

The first half and perhaps the match itself clearly belonged to little-known players like Gulia, who used his lower limbs to effect deft touches on opponents; this feature begun via Hegde, who earned the first point for his side with a running hand touch. Then Sachin, who made an impact in GFG’s third match against Haryana Steelers at Nagpur, was in good form and even got into the super-tackle mode earning multiple points. It was fearless and all-round performance by GFG, whose coach Manpreet Singh was shown the green card for coaching in the closing seconds of a thrilling first session for the home fans.

Apart from Anup’s inability to earn raid points, Shabeer Bapu’s futile raid attempts added to the pressure. U Mumba earned 15 points in the second session, an improvement from its lacklustre display in the first twenty minutes. But enjoying a huge lead at the end of the first session, GFG piled on pressure and collected another 19 in the second to win the match.

GFG now leads the six-team Zone A with 13 points.

Result: Gujarat Fortunegiants 39 beat U Mumba 21.