Bengaluru, (Samajweekly) Telugu Titans made an incredible comeback to draw Tamil Thalaivas 40-40 in the second match of Day 1 of the Pro Kabaddi League season 8 held at The Sheraton Grand, Whitefield, here on Wednesday.
Manjeet was the star raider for the Thalaivas with a Super 10 (12 raid points) while Siddharth Desai, despite spending a lot of time away from the mat, clinched a crucial Super 10 (11 points) for the Titans.
It was the Telugu Titans who impressed in the early stages of the match with Siddharth Desai and Rajnish clinching important raid points. At the other end, Sandeep Kandola was at the heart of everything positive the Titans did with their defence, which clinched them an all out in the 8th minute and open up a 7 point lead.
But the much-changed Tamil Thalaivas were in no mood to let the Titans run away with the lead. Solid tackling and sensible raiding helped them stay in striking distance. A 3-point Super Raid with 4 minutes remaining to half time by Manjeet gave Thalaivas an opportunity to inflict an all out and they did so in the 18 th minute to make the scores 20-20.
The momentum helped the team from Tamil Nadu end the half with a 3 point lead (23-21). Captain Rohit Kumar’s absence due to a suspected injury meant Titans looked leaderless in attack. The second half saw both the teams matching each other with tackles. Manjeet and Prapanjan impressed with the raids with the former getting his SUPER 10 (10 or more points) with 10 minutes left on the clock.
The Thalaivas clinched their second ALL OUT soon to make their lead 5 points. It had seemed Surjeet Sigh and Sahil’s defensive work would see the Thalaivas through in the last minutes, but Siddarth Desai stepped up his game to inflict an ALL OUT on the Tamil Nadu with 2 minutes remaining and levelling the score. The Titans then produced a successful tackle on Manjeet in the last move of the match to seal an incredible comeback tie.
