PWL: Punjab Royals edge Dilli Veer in a thriller

After suffering an agonising 3-4 defeat to UP Warriors in the last game, Dilli Veers once again ended up on the losing side in a close contest after Dinesh Kumar lost the crucial bout 2-6 to Punjab’s Praveen Rana. The crowd at the convention centre in Hyatt Regency in Gurgaon witnessed a thriller of a match on Friday evening with both teams going neck-to-neck.

The final and crucial bout of the day was between Dilli Veer’s Dinesh Kumar and Punjab Royals’ Praveen Rana in the men’s 74kg category. The first two minutes of the bout saw both wrestlers standing their ground with the match at a crucial stage. The referee awarded Praveen the first point of the match penalising Dinesh for passivity. The Dilli Veer wrestler, however, levelled things up in the last seconds of the first round by pushing his opponent out of the playing area.  

Praveen used his experience in the second round to take a four-point lead by a rolling leg lock. With time running out, Dinesh tried all his moves to get back into the match. He finally succeeded in reducing the lead by pushing his rival out of the playing area. As the clock ticked down, Praveen added one more point to his tally to register a 6-2 victory and to guide his team to a 4-3 win.

PWL now moves to the UP leg of the tournament with hosts UP Warriors taking on Haryana Hammers at the GBU Indoor stadium in Noida on Saturday.

Brief Scores

Punjab Royals 4-3 Dilli Veer (in order of bout)

1. Vladimer Khinchegashvili 4-3 Bekhbayar Erdenebat (M 57kg)

2. Vasilisa Marzaliuk 10-0 Nikki (W 69kg)

3. Rajneesh 0-10 Ikhtiyor Navruzov (M 65kg)

4. Geeta Phogat 1-4 Elif Jale Yeşilırmak (W 58kg)

5. Jargalsaikhany Chuluunbat 4-0 Krishan Kumar (M 125kg)

6. Yana Rattigan 6-15 Vinesh Phogat (W 48kg)

7. Praveen Rana 6-2 Dinesh Kumar (M 74kg)

Blocked categories: M 97kg, W 48kg