The nail-biter came to an end with a fruitful result for our Yoddha – thanks to brilliant performances from Prashanth, Shrikant, Sachin and Nitesh

UP Yoddha bounced back into winning terms, as they beat the Haryana Steelers in the first encounter between the two teams. The nail-biter came to an end with a fruitful result for our Yoddha – thanks to brilliant performances from Prashanth, Shrikant, Sachin and Nitesh.

Monu Goyat earned a bonus to start the game. After a couple of empty raids, Shrikant’s touch point in do-or-die raid levelled the scores. Shrikant lifted the team with back to back successful raids and helped us stay in contention.

We used up our review early in the match but it ended in the Steelers’ favour. Opposition skipper Monu Goyat came out for most of their raids and kept the scorecard ticking mostly with bonus points. However, it was a Super Raid from Vikas Khandola that got three of our Yoddhas out and earned the Steelers a good lead. Our defense immediately backed us up with a dash from Jeeva and an ankle hold from Nitesh to earn us a couple of points.

Though the responsibility of scoring raid points are majorly on the shoulders of our raiders, Sachin Kumar pulled off an intelligent one when given chance to get two of the Steelers out and earn us two important points. We headed to the break with a scoreline of 15-12 in favour of the Steelers.

Back for the second half, Sachin continued with his heroics, taking down two more of the Steelers. Jeeva’s block helped the Yoddha get out their final man standing in the next raid, to get them All-Out.

But the Steelers, too, kept on scoring in bulk, with yet another Super Raid. With 15 minutes to go, the scores stood levelled at 20 all and the game proceeded neck-and-neck.

With less than one minute in hand, we led by one point and it was the Steelers’ do-or-die raid. Naveen was sent for the raid, but was tackled by our skilled defenders. With the Steelers earning one final point, the victory came our way as we registered 30 points against our opponents’ 29 points.

While Rishank had to sit out for most of the match, Prashanth and Shrikant stepped up really well to bag eight points each and they were our most successful raiders. Nitesh Kumar bagged four points and was the most successful defender of the match. He received the TATA Ace Defender of the Match and Awfis Moment of the Match awards.

With this victory, we climbed to the fourth position of the Zone B points table.