A final-minute raid by the Nitin handed a draw to the Tamil Thalaivas against the home side Puneri Paltan in a Vivo PKL 2019 match at a fully packed Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi Pune on Wednesday. The raider inability to pull off with a valid raid in the final play of the match resulted in All Out that gave Thalaivas the three points key which is required to level the match at 36-36.
Ajith Kumar was the star for the Tamil Thalaivas team with a Super 10 (18 raid points), but the Chennai team will have Pune’s bad planning to thank for the one point they secured in the night. Manjeet (11 raid points) and Pankaj Mohite (8 raid points) impressed in the raiding department for the Pune side who would rue missing the chance of jumping to 8th on the points table.
The first half started with a lot of promise for the struggling Tamil Thalaivas side with Rahul Chaudhari and Ajith Kumar looking good in their raids. But the error-prone Tamil defense allowed Pankaj Mohite to escape with a three-point Super Raid in the sixth minute of the match to turn things around the home side.
Pune secured they’re first All Out in the coming next minute to move to a three-point which even leads and dominate the half from thereon. A few strong tackles by the Shabeer Bappu, which even includes the Super Tackle on the Manjeet Side in the 12th minute that even kept the Thalaivas in the game, but Pune even quickly established a 6 point lead to the end the half 18-12.
The second half saw more of the same as Pune stamped their authority on the match. But some heroics from Thalaivas’ young raider Ajith Kumar prevented an All-Out for a long time. It became an Ajith versus Pune as the Tamil Nadu youngster produced four consecutive multi-point raids to rush to his Super ten and also prevent the All-Out. The Pune side eventually got their All-Out in the 8th minute of the half to open a seven-point lead.
