PKL 2021: All round Jaipur Pink Panthers register second consecutive win

Jaipur Pink Panthers continued their winning run in PKL 2021 after crushing the UP Yoddha side by 32-29. Jaipur captain Deepak Niwas Hooda sealed the victory for Pink Panthers through a successful Do-or-Die raid. Arjun Deshwal shined once again for Jaipur in a low-scoring thriller.

As it happened........

Sandeep Dhull made his comeback in the Starting 7 replacing Dharmaraj Cheralathan at the left corner. Coach Sanjeev Kumar Baliyan handed over the first start to right corner Shaul Kumar who had an impressive cameo in a recent victory. It was Jaipur's third different Starting 7 corner pair in their third match of the season. Meanwhile, UP Yoddha made only one change in the Starting 7 from the last fixture replacing Shubham Kumar Baliyan with young energetic all-rounder Gurdeep.

The first half action began with the rain of raid points as the first successful tackle was performed in the sixth minute of the half. Arjun Deshwal steadily brought Jaipur in a driving position after a long absence of Pardeep Narwal from the court. The seventeenth-minute all out conceded by UP Yoddha was the highlight of the first half. It was followed by two consecutive Super Raids from both sides by vigilant Surender Gill and captain Deepak Niwas Hooda.

Jaipur kick-started the second half with a seven-point lead with a scoreline of 19-12. Pink Panthers continued to take down UP's continuous revolts. They also successfully maintained the game's pace in their favour. Yoddhas were close to the lead throughout the second half but Jaipur did not allow them to match it even once. The Rajasthan-based franchise defended their precious lead from UP invaders in the final minutes of the clash.

Takeaways from the clash

Pardeep Narwal and Shrikant Jadhav's failure was one of the prominent reasons behind this defeat. But Surender Gill emergence as the main raider of the side scoring his first Super 10 of the season eight would certainly impress the Yoddha management. The rise of youngster Rohit Tomar was also one of the positive takeaways from this fixture. The Khelo India silver medalist raider scored a sum of 7 total points including 6 raid points and one tackle point.

Arjun Deshwal has Super 10s under his name from three out of three-season eight games. Interestingly, Deshwal had only three Super 10s in his career before season eight commenced. Arjun's tally of 11 raid points consists only of touchpoints which helped his team massively in player revivals.