A fine raiding effort by Vikash Khandola inspired Haryana Steelers to a 35-31 victory over home side U Mumba at the Dome@NSCI SVP Stadium on Sunday. His 15-point effort paved the way for Haryana Steelers’ first win of Season 6 win over U Mumba, having lost their previous two encounters.

The game started on an equal footing as both teams exchanged points for the first five minutes. However, a five-point raid by Siddharth Desai put U Mumba up by seven points as they inflicted the first All-Out of the match on Haryana Steelers in just the fifth minute.

Check out the photos from the match here.

Haryana Steelers, however, levelled the scores just six minutes later as Vikash Khandola helped them inflict their first All-Out on the home side with the scores reading 12-12. The rest of the first half saw both teams exchanging one point after the other as U Mumba took a slender one-point lead into the break.

The second half started pretty much the same way as the first with both teams exchanging points. Haryana Steelers regained the lead in the sixth minute and led by two points before U Mumba scored five unanswered points.

Khandola, though, led Haryana Steelers’ fightback as he completed his Super 10 in the 12th minute. Desai completed his second successive Super 10 as well in the following raid as U Mumba led by just two points at that point.

Led by Right Corner Sunil, who managed a High 5, it was Haryana Steelers who capitalized on their momentum in the final minutes.

Visit the matchcentre to relive the contest here.

Facing a pressure situation, Khandola showed extreme composure in his penultimate raid and returned successfully to effectively win Haryana Steelers the game at 33-30 with just seconds to play. Having ensured Abhishek Singh got just a point in U Mumba’s last raid, it was all about running down the clock for Haryana Steelers.

U Mumba’s defence had to play aggressively in the closing seconds to try and force a win and they ended up conceding 2 points to Khandola in his final raid.

 This gave the visitors a 4-point advantage as they managed to win an extremely close game 35-31.

Top Performers

U Mumba

Top Raider: Siddharth Desai (10 raid points)

Top Defender: Vinod Kumar (3 tackle points)

Haryana Steelers

Top Raider: Vikash Khandola (15 raid points)

Top Defender: Sunil (5 tackle points)