Paltan overcome Steelers to rise to third in Zone A

Puneri Paltan trumped Haryana Steelers 37-25 at the Harivansh Tana Bhagat Indoor Stadium in Ranchi on Tuesday. Sandeep Narwal’s fantastic performance (9 points) coupled with Rajesh Mondal’s 7-point assist negated Surjeet Singh’s Super-10 display for Haryana.

The match started with Pune firing from both attack and defence to set the ball rolling. But Haryana, who were again missing both Surender Nada and Mohit Chhillar, came back strongly to level the scores. A super tackle from Narwal on Deepak Kumar Dahiya, however, resulted in Pune leading 7-4 at the end of the first quarter.

Thereafter, Haryana came back strongly with a super tackle on Deepak Hooda to tie the scores. End-to-end action ensued until the 17th minute when Hooda pulled off a two-point raid to reduce Haryana to two men on the mat. Narwal did the rest, and with the first All-Out of the match inflicted on Haryana at the stroke of halftime Pune entered the breather leading 16-10.

Prashanth Kumar Rai and Mayur Shivtarkar were introduced into the Haryana mix in the second half. Soon both Pune’s Narwal and Haryana’s Kuldeep Singh completed a High 5 as the team from Maharashtra led by 7 points.

With 10 minutes remaining on the clock, Surjeet came forth with two consecutive two-point raids to narrow the gap but Pune were in no mood to give the match away. They came back strongly to hand Haryana their second All-Out of the night in the 36th minute to take an unassailable 13-point lead. The match ended with Pune rising to third in Zone A with a 37-25 win.

Check out our snapshots from this match here.