Pro Kabaddi League 2019 | Match 4: Telugu Titans vs Tamil Thalaivas Review | 21st July 2019
Telugu Titans suffered a heartbreaking loss last night at the hands of U Mumba and were looking for a chance to redeem themselves. On the other hand, star-studded Thalaivas, with the likes of Rahul Chaudhari, Ajay Thakur, and Manjeet Chillar, were itching to step on the mat for their first face-off.
Read to find out about the first Southern Derby of PKL 2019, with players like Siddharth Desai and Chaudhari clashing against each other:
Playing 7:
Telugu Titans: Abozar Mighani, Vishal Bhardwaj, Siddharth Desai, Farhad Milaghardan, C. Arun, Rajnish, Kamal Singh
Tamil Thalaivas: Ajay Thakur, Rahul Chaudhari, Shabeer Bappu, Ajeet, Manjeet Chhillar, Mohit Chhillar, Ran Singh
Toss:
Telugu Titans won the toss and chose the court.
Showman Rahul Chaudhari opened for the Thalaivas and scored his first point of Season 7. Showcasing an all-round game since the very beginning, Chaudhari also executed a fierce ankle-hold on Siddharth "Bahubali" Desai.
However, Ajay called out for a review in the fifth minute of the match but unfortunately lost it. Rajnish became the first scorer for his home team, Telugu Titans. After managing to get the lead in the ninth minute of the face-off, the Titans were quick to lose their hard-earned dominance.
Shabeer Bappu and Manjeet were on fire and scored without a break for their team. Mohit Chhillar also inflicted some beautiful tackles. For Telugu, Abozar and Vishal caught hold of Chaudhari and Thakur on a few occasions.
Right before half-time, the Titans took a review which ended up being successful for them. Desai scored his second point in the seventeenth minute of the match, which was pretty shocking given his past performances.
Shortly afterwards, Thakur went in for a raid and scored the first Super Raid of the match. In the 14th minute, with 11-6, the Thalaivas inched ahead.
At half-time, the scoreboard read 20-10, in favour of the Thalaivas. The Titans started looking more confident on resumption. Farhad Milaghardan from the Titans stepped on the opponent's court and performed a fine hand touch on Ajay.
Desai, who was still trying to figure out his form, performed a successful tackle on Rahul Chaudhari. Throughout the match, he spent most of the time sitting off the mat. The Titans also lost their only review during the 26th minute, taken in the favour of Desai.
Manjeet, the one-man-army, displayed a killer game and completed the high-five in his very first match of the season. Siddharth kept on getting tackled in almost every raid he went for. In the 33rd minute of the match, the scoreboard displayed 28-17, with Tamil leading.
The Titans faced a second unfortunate all-out in the dying minutes of the match, despite C. Arun's efforts to save the drowning ship. Ran Singh also completed the milestone of 200 tackle points. Chaudhari played excellently against his old team and completed his Super 10.
A substitute, Ajith also did a laudable job and constantly kept on scoring points for the Thalaivas. Mohit Chhillar was also in wonderful form as he did not let the raiders get a sniff of the cross line.
The match ended on a brilliant note for Tamil Thalaivas as they won the anticipated battle with the score 39-26. The Titans, despite the home advantage, did not stand up to their fans' expectations and lost their second match in a row.
The Thalaivas, on the other hand, displayed their best game in the league and shell-shocked everyone. With a perfectly aligned team, every player was in form and pitched in points for the squad. Tamil proved that they didn't just look good on paper and were actually here to stay.
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