Two closely fought contests were witnessed on Tuesday evening as Dabang Delhi edged out the Patna Pirates in the first game, with the second game between Gujarat Giants and U Mumba ending in a draw.
The 62nd match of the Pro Kabaddi League 8 was all about claiming the number 1 position in the points table. In what was a closely contested game, DDKC defeated the Pirates by 32-29.
Delhi once again was without the services of their star raider Naveen Kumar. Patna on the other hand was without their experienced raider Monu Goyat and the hero of the last game Sunil. Patna was hit by another injury in the first half when their cover Sajin got injured.
Despite missing Kumar, DD inflicted an all-out on Patna Pirates within the first 15 minutes. Sandeep Narwal was back to raiding, and he did a great job by scoring multi-point raids.
At the end of the first half, Dabang Delhi led Pirates by nine points. The Pirates, though in the second half, made a brilliant comeback and inflicted an all-out on DD. Both the teams then fiercely contested for single points.
There wasn’t much to differentiate between the two sides when the game went into the last 4 minutes, but Vijay scored a super raid in the dying stages and took the game away from Pirates, the same way as he did in the previous game against Haryana Steelers (28-25).
Vijay scored nine raid points in the game and was ably supported by Narwal, who picked up seven raid points.
A night of non- stop action ⚔️
— Dabang Delhi KC (@DabangDelhiKC) January 18, 2022
Here are @SportZchain stats from our memorable win#DabangDelhi #HarDumDabang #SuperhitPanga #vivoProKabaddi pic.twitter.com/LcUwLrASMM
For Patna Pirates, in the absence of Goyat, the captain PK Rai took the responsibility and scored six raid points. He Couldn’t get the kind of support he was expecting from Guman Singh and Sachin.
In defence, though, Neeraj and Mohammadrez Chiyaneh scored four and three tackle points respectively for the Pirates.
With this win, Dabang Delhi claimed the top spot in the points table once again. Despite losing this game, the Pirates retained their 2nd spot.
If the first game of the night was closely contested, then the second game of the day took the entertainment to another level. The clash between Gujarat Giants and U Mumba ended in a tie, 24-24.
This was the 13th tie of the season overall and Mumba’s fifth tie of the season. U Mumba entered the game with a goal to enter the top six in the points table, and after this tied game, they achieved just that.
At the end of the first half, Gujarat Giants had a slender lead on Mumba as the score read 13-10 in favour of Gujarat.
In the second half, the pace of the game got slower as Mumba made a slow and steady comeback into the match.
The last 30 seconds of the game saw a dramatic turn of events as Ajay Kumar of Gujarat Giants claimed a bonus point, but he was awarded just a single touchpoint instead. Mumba, who was leading by a point before the raid, challenged the umpire’s decision, but it didn’t go in their favour.
The last raid of the game was done by Abhishek Singh, who failed to get a touchpoint for Mumba. In the end, the best raider for Mumba was V Ajith, who got eight raid points. For Gujarat, the best raider was Ajay Kumar, with seven raid points.
Gujarat’s defence didn’t perform as well as the coach would have liked. While for Mumba, Rinku Singh completed his High 5.
This tie has helped Gujarat close the gap between other teams who are placed just above them in the points table.
