New Delhi: Fans witnessed the first blowout match of the season as Puneri Paltan defeated Gujarat Giants 41-19 at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Vizag on September 1, Monday. It was a proper all-round show from the Paltan’s side as 11 players scored at least a point in the match, while the Gujarat’s skipper Mohammadreza Shadloui went pointless in the game.
Paltan’s defensive unit outclassed the Giants raiders as Abinesh Nadarajan led the team with a High 5, and Gaurav Khatri and Gurdeep managed to score four tackle points. Their raiders, Aslam Inamdar, Aditya Shinde, and Pankaj Mohite, score five points each against the Giants in a proper team effort victory.
Inamdar and Mohite led their team in the opening minutes, while Nadarajan recorded four tackle points through the midway point of the first half. Paltan immediately forced an all-out on the Giants to extend their lead to six points.
Nadaraj completed his High 5 in the first half itself, and with the support of their raiders, Paltan had a six-point lead. Mohite also completed 400 raid point mark in PKL.
Puneri Paltan’s dominate Gujarat Giants in second half as well
The domination continued in the second half and inflicted the second all-out of the match to extend their lead to 14 points. Giants were struggling on the ground and couldn’t score a single point between their two all-outs in the second half.
This was also the first instance since PKL 8 that Shadloui finished the game with zero points, which summed up the story of proper dominance from the Puneri’s side.
Gujarat’s raiders only scored 10 points in the match, and this is the first time in the season that a team scored below 20 points in a match. This was also the second consecutive loss for Gujarat after a tie-breaker loss against U Mumba.
Whereas Paltan won their second consecutive match of the season and climbed to the top position in the points table with their gigantic 22-point difference in season 12.