The test of power between our UP Yoddha and Bengal Warriors remained undecided, as our second meet up ended in a Tie on Sunday at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, Greater Noida. We had a close battle with the team from the east, putting up an 11-12 scoreline in the first half, while the final score read 30 all. With three Tie points, we climbed up to the second position in the points table.

We started off with a rather unique ploy, with a raid by Sachin Kumar. However, we got our first point off Shrikant’s successful raid. Our raiders looked in a better touch today; our captain Rishank went off the mark with a 2-point raid while Shrikant too had a successful 2-pointer not long after. The fight went neck-and-neck, with our defenders, especially Nitesh, who kept our opponent raiders at their toes. With five points on the mat, we headed to half-time, with an 11-12 score-line in favour of the Warriors.

From being reduced to four on the mat right after the start of second half, our wild card Azad Singh earned us two points strengthening our side. He played exceptionally well, pulling off consecutive successful raids and we got the Warriors All-Out, taking a 4-point lead. Despite some good work by our raiders and defenders, the Warriors got us All-Out. Rishank displayed some exquisite skills, completing his Super 10 as well as 500 raid points in ProKabaddi. His successful raids and efforts in defense helped us level the scores at 28 all with 3 minutes to go. Though the Warriors claimed they had scored a touch point off the final raid, we reviewed the decision to reveal there was no touch and settle for a tie.

Nitesh Kumar received the TATA Ace Defender of the Match for 4 tackle points while Jeeva Kumar was given the UP Yoddha Moment of the Match award for his crucial tackle to change the flow of the game.