Gujarat Fortunegiants rallied to a comprehensive 48-38 victory against Telugu Titans 48-38 in a Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) match at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Greater Noida. Monday.
Sonu Jaglan starred for Gujarat as he scored a mammoth 17 raid points (Gujarat’s best-ever raid performance in PKL history), as the season six runners-up finished its campaign on a positive note.
Even though both the teams were already knocked out of the tournament, both teams started the match with all guns blazing.
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Siddharth Desai, as usual, started well and with a flurry a raid points, helped Titans race to an early 8-5 lead. He was ably supported by Rakesh Gowda in the raiding department.
The Titans claimed its first 'All-out' of the match in the seventh minute and dominated proceedings thereafter, with Akash Choudhary and Aakash Arsul putting in impressive tackles. For Gujarat, Sonu scored five points in first twenty.
The first half ended with the Titans leading 21-13. Siddharth scored seven raid points of seven raids with 100 percent srike-rate.
Coach Manpreet Singh’s pep-talk at the interval worked wonders for the Fortunegiants, who dominated the match from the onset of the second half. It first tamed Siddharth Desai, thanks to Pankaj's ankle hold and then Parvesh Bhainswal floored Palle Mallikarjun to hand the Hyderabad-based team its first 'All-out'.
Sonu continued to make merry as he picked up points at will. He picked up his 'Super-10', while GB More caught the Titans by surprise with his all-round show.
Palle tried his best to keep the Titans in the game by scoring four points in two raids, including a 'Super-tackle', but could not prevent Gujarat from dishing another 'All-out' and draw back level to 29-29.
Gujarat was able to convert its momentum to claim another 'All-Out' on the opposition with three minutes remaining and take a 43-35 lead.
Sonu’s impressive night got even better when he picked up a massive four-point 'Super-raid'. Pankaj helped himself to a well-deserved 'High-5' as Gujarat sealed the victory.
- Tamil Thalaivas ends win drought in thriller-
Tamil Thalaivas ended its 14-match winless streak when the team rode on V. Ajith Kumar's brilliance to edge past Jaipur Pink Panthers 35-33 in the second match of the day.
Both the teams started cautiously and traded early blows. Amit Hooda of Jaipur tackled Rahul Chaudhari on multiple occasions while Ajith Kumar tamed the league's leading defender, Sandeep Dhull.
Deepak Narwal's raiding exploits ensure Jaipur maintained the lead as the men in pink came agonisingly close to bundling out the opposition. However, the turning point of the match arrived when Ajith Kumar sent Dhull to the bench and for the first time in the match, Thalaivas took the lead.
Eventually, Thalaivas inflicted the first 'All-out' on Jaipur and ended the first half 19-14 in its favour.
Ajith Kumar continued his good form in the second half as he registered yet another 'Super-10'. On the other hand, Amit Hooda tackled the Kenyan Victor Obiero twice to bring up his 'High-5'.
Rahul found some form in the second half and scored four points in the second half to support V. Ajith Kumar. Ran Singh and M. Abishek contributed to the men in blue's cause with important tackles and nullified all the good work done by Lokesh Kaushik and Deepak for Jaipur.
Ponparthiban Subramanian pulled off a brilliant dash on Lokesh in the dying moments of the game as Thalaivas notched up its fourth win of the season.
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