In another disappointing outing for Delhi Dabang, the Meraj Sheykh-led side suffered their second successive loss in their home leg, going down to Puneri Paltan 34-29 belying their coach's hopes for a turnaround on home mat.
Once again the Dabang side lost the game after leading in the first half.
The hosts looked good early on with their leading raiders Rohit Baliyan and captain Sheykh leading the charge. In a brilliant raid, Meraj found himself in trouble deep in Pune's half but managed to escape getting two points for his team. Pune's captain Deepak Hooda was unable to make much of an impact in the first half and his team trailed 8-14 at half-time.
But after the break, Pune went on a rampage as they pulled off two consecutive super tackles to take out both Baliyan and Sheykh. Rajesh Mondal got a two point raid to put Paltan in the lead and got another brace to put Delhi in danger of all-out.
The all-out did materialize in the sixth minute of the half as Pune led 21-15. But worse was to come for Delhi as they started falling like nine pins with Hooda getting his form back and Meraj losing it. Hooda took out four Delhi players in a super raid.
Delhi were again all out in the 10th minute and Pune's lead swelled to 30-16. The match was slipping away from Delhi and though they fought back with Abolfazl Maghsodlu getting a hat-trick of successful raids and Delhi getting an all-out. The deficit was down to just five points at one stage but Pune were in no mood to relent and in the last minute Delhi played safe to ensure they get one point for losing by less than seven points but Pune walked away with a sweet victory.
BENGAl HOlD ON FOR VICTORY
In a Zone B match of the Delhi leg of PKl 5, Bengal Warriors produced a clinical performance to register an important win over Bengaluru Bulls to keep their second place in the points table intact.
The Warriors took the initiative early on in the first half racing to a 11-4 lead in the ninth minute thanks to a brilliant performance by their defence team led by Surjeet Singh and Shrikant Tewthia who were able to pull off four successful tackles en route to the all out.
Bulls' captain and main raider Rohit Kumar was having a terrible time in the first half getting tackled successfully three times in a row.
It was Harish Naik who kept Bulls afloat by becoming the most successful raider for the side. Rohit finally got off the mark in the 13th minute and Bengaluru started to fight back and at one stage reduced Bengal to just three men putting them in danger of an all-out.
For Warriors also, it wasn't their biggest star Maninder that was leading the way but Deepak Narwal. Jang Kun lee was also kept quiet by the Bulls and the Korean could only get off the mark in the 18th minute.
The first half ended with Bengal maintaining a healthy 18-10 lead over their opponents.
The second half saw Bengaluru play it safe initially by not raiding with serious intent and asking Bengal to make the move, which they did through Vinod Kumar but he was tackled successfully by Bulls' defence.
Maninder, luckily for Bengal, was getting his form back and pulled off a super raid worth four points to increase the lead to five points. But for Bulls, Naik was on fire attacking from the left corner and keeping his team in hunt and the deficit from going out of control.
Bengal were almost home and dry and with a successful tackle in the last raid of the match secured a four-point victory.