In the second minute of the match, Wazir Singh won his team the first points of the match and that set the tone for the rest of the first 10 minutes. The Paltans took a 4-0 lead after their defenders caught Pardeep Narwal in the 6th minute. The Bulls were shell-shocked as Pune, who are currently last in the table, completed an all out in the 9th minute to make the score 10-4.
The Bulls charged back with the help of youngster Ashish Chhokar, who returned successfully on most of his raids and he made it a 1-point game in the 16th minute returning from his raid after tagging 2 Paltan players.
Both the teams exchanged points for the rest of the half as the referee brought the half to a close with the scoreline reading 13-12 in Puneri Paltans favour. The Randhir Singh-coached side came back strongly in the final 10 minutes and he would want more of the same from his team in the second half. Puneri Paltan had led in both their matches at half-time, but ended up on the losing side on each occasion.
Pune lose yet another match after leading at half-time
The Bulls took the lead for the first time in the match 2 minutes into the second half, but Manjeet Chhillar was caught through a ‘super tackle’ as Pune regained their lead in the 23rd minute. The Bulls led 18-17 as Pune had only Wazir Singh left, who was caught in the resulting raid through a brilliant tackle by Dharmaraj Cheralathan.
The Bulls kept on increasing their lead point by point before youngster Rakesh Narwal returned with a super raid to extend his team’s lead to 8 points with 8 minutes to go. Aided by Wazir Singh’s smart raids, the Paltans ate up Bulls’ lead making the score 28-22 with a little over 5 minutes to go.
The Bulls made sure they did not relinquish their lead and ended the Kolkata leg with two wins in two. Pune would have to go back to the drawing board to break the losing run. Ashish Chhokar rightly got all the plaudits as he returned with 3 touch and as many raid points. Wazir Singh won 6 points as well, but did not get enough support from his team.
Man of the match: Ashish Chhokar
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