Staging a comeback after a close defeat in our previous match, U.P. Yoddha cruised to a scintillating win against Thalaivas at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur.
Yoddha faced the bottom-placed Thalaivas on Saturday and registered a final score-line of 42-22, our biggest this season.
The Thalaivas had a good start, thanks to successful raids by Rahul Chaudhari. Despite Ashu’s super tackle, the Thalaivas banked on their raiders’ good performance to get Yoddha all out within the first eight minutes of the match.
Though the Thalaivas dominated most of the first half, Surender Gill and Shrikant Jadhav initiated the team’s revival. Their back-to-back attack on the Thalaivas’ defense kept reducing the deficit. The turning moment of the match was Shrikant Jadhav’s super raid right before the end of the first half in which he took four Thalaivas’ players off the court, simultaneously reducing the lead to a solitary point. Shrikant completed 100 raid points this season as Yoddha entered the next half with a 13-14 score-line.
The next half began with Manjeet Chhilar’s unsuccessful attempt to save his side from an all-out - the first time Yoddha took a lead in the match.
A team effort from our able squad made sure we minimised errors and shifted the momentum to favour us.
The Defenders looked more confident in the second half, going for advanced tackles and pulling them off with precision. Sumit at the left corner was lethal, as he picked up five tackle points within 18 minutes to complete his fifth high-5 of the season.
With perfect execution of an aggressive game-plan, Yoddha handed Thalaivas their second all-out within seven minutes, while the third followed in even lesser time, another six minutes. With a lead of 35-18 and seven more minutes to go, Yoddha had almost ascertained victory.
Yoddha let Thalaivas gather only four points in those seven minutes, finishing with a 42-22 scoreline and announcing a comeback to winning terms.
This is Yoddha’s biggest win this season and the third-best victory by an overall margin. Shrikant and Surender were at their usual best, bagging eight and seven points respectively while Sumit was the best of the defenders with five points.
Hoping to continue the winning form, Yoddha will next face Haryana Steelers at Panchkula on Saturday.