PKL | Ajay Thakur’s Super 10 in vain as Delhi win thriller against Thalaivas

Dabang Delhi won the toss and chose the court which meant Tamil Thalaivas would raid first. After the Thalaivas came up with an empty raid in their first attempt, Meraj Sheykh opened the scoring on the day with a raid point for Delhi. Rohit Baliyan’s mistake awarded the first point for Tamil Thalaivas before K Prapanjan put the Thalaivas in the lead with his first raid point of the game. Ravi Dalal’s raid equalled the score at 2-2. After Meraj’s one point, Tamil sent Prapanjan for do or die raid but his failure to score meant that Delhi doubled their lead margin. The Thalaivas, however, brought the score level again coming up with an all important Super Tackle on the Delhi captain. On the very next attempt, Ajay Thakur’s signature running hand touch helped his team to level up the score 5-5. Amit Hooda’s ankle hold sent Baliyan out of the game before a thigh hold from the Delhi sent Prapanjan out of the mat and helped Meraj to rejoin his team. And he proved his value again as he added one more point to the tally to take a narrow one point lead with the score at 7-6. 

After two empty raids, Ajay Thakur introduced himself during do or die raid and successfully got his second point on the night. Two successful raids by Delhi’s skipper followed by Baliyan helped his team take a two point lead yet again. But keeping with the trend of the game, Ajay Thakur successfully converted his do or die raid into a point before Meraj was tackled to bring the score level at 9-9 again. Prapanjan failed to score in do or die raid as Viraj Vishnu successfully tackled him and  R Sriram who had just been substituted in for Ravi Dalal came up with a two point raid. Before the end of the first half, however, Tamil Thalaivas with only two players tackled Meraj to earn their second Super Tackle of the day. Both the skippers had earned four points for their team in the first half as the teams went in for the break with the scoreboard reading 12-12. 

After two rounds of the empty raids Delhi faced do or die raid but Tamil Thalaivas successfully earned two points from Super Tackle and got the all-important lead. Abolfazal, however, came into the game and showed his potential as he earn one point on his very first raid and after a successful raid by Ajay Thakur the tall Iran star produced a Super Tackle and sent Lee out of the game who had just been introduced in Narwal’s place and the score reached 16-17. The Thalaivas’ defence brilliantly trapped the Delhi skipper in his do or die raid and with  Ajay Thakur scoring in his do or die raid the Thalaivas increased the deficit to 3 as the scoreboard read 16-19. After Abolfazl’s bonus point, Ajay Thakur, yet again, scored the point which helped them to maintain the three point lead. But soon, Abolfazl earned two points in one attempt and after yet another Ajay Thakur raid point, only Abolfazl stood in the Delhi half. However, the Iranian was not willing to give up without a fight as he picked up a bonus plus a raid point to level the game 21-21.