U Mumba and Gujarat Giants shared the spoils in an entertaining 24-24 tie in Match 63 of the ongoing Pro Kabaddi League Season 8 at The Sheraton Grand, Whitefield, Bengaluru.
Ajay Kumar, Gujarat's star of the night with 7 points, clinched an important point in the last minute to earn his team a tie. Both teams will look back at the match and think they could have won it had they been a little more proactive.
Gujarat started the match strongly with Rakesh S and Ajay Kumar handling the bulk of the raiding duties. They made most out of a hesitant U Mumba defence in the initial minutes. At the other end, Abhishek Singh and Ajith Kumar took turns to raid for the Mumbai team. Ajith looked like he had recovered from the back injury he suffered earlier in the season and moved effortlessly around the mat.
But it was the Gujarat defence who dominated the first half with three tackle points more than U Mumba. At the break, the scores were 13-10 with no ALL OUTs inflicted.
Mumbai's lack of conviction was the main theme of the first 10 minutes after the restart. Hesitation to go for tackles and slow movement in the raids meant Gujarat had a 5-point lead at the first Time Out.
Girish Ernak, Parvesh Bhainswal, and Sunil started getting more tackle points as Mumbai coach Rajaguru Subramanian encouraged Ajinkya Kapre to take up more raids.
Right when Gujarat sensed an ALL OUT Rinku produced a stunning Super Tackle to give Mumbai the momentum. Ajith Kumar then brought out a series of successful raids to level the points for Mumbai.
Rinku got his High 5 and Abhishek Singh clinched a point in a Do-or-Die raid to give Mumbai the lead with under 2 minutes to go. But Ajay Kumar secured a point in the penultimate raid of the match for Gujarat to earn his team a tie.
( With inputs from ANI )
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