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The second day of the inter zone challenge week brought along another two kabaddi games of high quality as fresh from their first win, Tamil Thalaivas, took on Haryana Steelers in the night's first game while home team Gujarat Fortunegiants clashed with Telugu Titans. In the first match, the pendulum swung wildly across the two halves to finally settle at the mid point as both the teams settled for a tie after fighting hard throughout the game.
In the second match, the home team marched to their fifth consecutive win against a hapless Telugu Titans on the back of special performances from raider Sachin and defender Abozar Mighani. The defeat only piled on the misery for Rahul Chaudhari's team who are yet to taste victory after their win on the first night of the league. Here are the five talking points from the day
#1 Defence rules the roost in first half
Defence thoroughly dominated the first half of the first match between Tamil Thalaivas and Haryana Steelers. It was expected from Haryana Steelers considering the presence of two heavyweights in the form of Surender Nada and Mohit Chhillar but even Tamil Thalaivas were at their defensive best on Wednesday.
Skipper Surender Nada led the way by starting off with super tackle and continued his good show to bring up his High 5 in the first half itself. He was ably supported by the experienced Mohit Chhillar as well.
On the other hand, Amit Hooda recovered from his school boyish error early on to come back strong and take down one Haryana raider after another with ease. However, the good show for the Thalaivas was started by young J Darshan playing his first game. He put in two fantastic dashes to make his mark on debut. There was little to cheer about for the raiders who majorly had to suffice with bonus points in the first half.
#2 Thalaivas run amok in the second half
Thalaivas had fought hard in the first half to stay in the contention unlike their previous games. Surender Nada's last second Super Tackle in the first half, however, tilted the scales in the favour of Haryana going into the break. But something changed in the break as Tamil Thalaivas played with much more fire in the belly when they took the mat in the second half.
More importantly for them, they even managed to translate that fire into points. They began the half down by 3 points but were leading by 6 points within the 4 minutes of the second half on the back of some mind blowing raiding from the tall Prapanjan.
The lanky young man used his height to good advantage and got a couple of points twice for his team to put them in a position of strength. Defender Amit Hooda also continued his good work and made life difficult for the Gujarat raiders to chip in with tackle points and put Haryana on backfoot.
#3 And that's how they tied!
The fantastic comeback by Tamil Thalaivas was followed by an equally fighting show by the Steelers who had levelled the scores when the clock signalled that there was less than 60 seconds left in the game and only two raids possible. But it was advantage Steelers as only two Thalaiva players were left on the mat and an All Out loomed large. One among those two, however, was a man who had fought with Surender Nada throughout the match for the best defender of the match title - Amit Hooda.
When Vikash Khandola went in to take Haryana's final raid, one could see that he just couldn't get himself to risk it and break the deadlock. A tackle there would have given the opposition a two point lead and, practically, the match itself.
Khandola, after contemplating hard, went back after completing an empty raid. On the return raid, Amit Hooda, knowing that he had little business trying a raid in front of a full fledged Steelers line up, just crossed the mid line and killed time, waiting for the clock to reach zero. And that's how both the teams traded a chance for a win with a tie.
#4 Sachin's silly points
Sachin has been the team's leading raider in the last few games and, without any doubt, has been impressive in that role. On Wednesday, he began in fine fashion but had a moment that could have gone either way for him.The game had just begun and a see saw contest was what it was turning into with both teams dealing each other hefty blows. That's when Sachin went in to raid and after taking out right corner Vishal Bhardwaj with a hand touch, the young man sprinted across the mat towards the right corner.
Then came the moment that befuddled all. Sachin started his celebration deep into the Titans' mat and sensing that the raider hadn't crossed the mid-line yet, Bhardwaj ran across as well to bring him down with a dash. Seeing a charging Vishal approach, Sachin had to abandon his celebration midway and run for his life but Vishal took him down and it was only his wriggling leg that managed to cross over that saved Sachin.
Luckily for Sachin, he got two points out of the raid once it was reviewed. That, however, didn't take anything away from the silliness of the act and Sachin was seen apologising to his teammates for whatever he was trying to do there. Eventually, the young lad more than made up for it by racing to 10 points in no time.
#5 Benched Chaudhari hurts Titans
To say Rahul Chaudhari had a day to forget would be an understatement. Leading a team that had been winless for seven games now, Rahul Chaudhari was expected to inspire his troops by conjuring up some magic that he was so used to doing in the past seasons. But what was produced, instead, was another disappointing performance, both by the team and captain. The team had been pretty much shoved out of contest in the first half itself and their captain too had no answers to the tackles by the Iranian pair of Mighani and Atrachali.
It was saddening to see the champion raider continuously being taken down and making his way to the bench on innumerable occasions on the night. Chaudhari spent more than half of the match on the bench and made errors in the defence too to give easy points to the Fortunegiants.
Chaudhari needs to pick a leaf out of Bengaluru Bulls captain Rohit Kumar's book who manages stay on the mat for longer periods despite being the team's leading raider. The team would also need to make a call whether they need Chaudhari the raider more or Chaudhari the captain. With almost half of their campaign finished, both Chaudhari and his team would need a miracle to bounce back.
