AHMEDABAD: Sonu Jaglan once again showed his brilliance and emerged as the hero of Gujarat Giants' hat-trick victory on Tuesday. Thanks to Sony's Super Raid in the last minute, the Giants recorded an incredible 39-37 win over U Mumba at the EKA Arena by TransStadia. The important thing is that this was the 100th match of veteran defender Fazal Atrachali as captain and his team gave a great gift to its captain with the victory.
U Mumba played well in the first few minutes. Although both the teams were scoring points, U Mumba took a 7-5 lead in the 5th minute thanks to Guman Singh's two-point raid. After this, Giants put their trump card Sonu Jaglan on the mat in the 7th minute but he failed in the beginning. HS Rakesh came to the rescue of the Giants when he got a running hand touch and a bonus on Rinku Singh to give his team a narrow lead of 10-9.
However, U Mumba took a 12-10 lead around the 11th minute due to Mahendra Singh's brilliant super tackle. Soon their lead increased to six points as Sonu was tackled in a do or die raid and then Guman gave his team the strength by taking another raid point.
It looked as if U Mumba would go into the second half with a good lead, but with five minutes remaining Fazal produced two moments of magic. First, he went on the raid and dismissed his rival captain Surinder Singh and then brought the Giants back into the match 16-18 with a super tackle.
At the start of the second half, Sonu's first raid point gave the Giants the equaliser. After this no one could stop them as Sonu pushed U Mumba towards all out by dismissing Rinku Singh and Mahendra. In the very next raid the inevitable happened as U Mumba faced all out and the Giants took a 23-19 lead. Due to some brilliant raiding and strong defense by Sonu, the Giants took a lead of 30-22 after 30 minutes.
However, U Mumba made a comeback due to pride. Guman took three points in three consecutive attempts and then Iranian all-rounder Amirmohammad Jafardanesh and Prannoy Rane scored points from quick raids to put Mumba at 30-34. Zafardanesh did the unthinkable with less than two minutes remaining, dismissing Fazal and Manuj to all out Gujarat and thus brought his team back on par.
But then Sonu showed his magic. An amazing three-point super raid in the last minute of the match gave the Giants their third consecutive win and also completed their third consecutive Super-10.
Tomorrow's fixtures: Telugu Titans vs Patna Pirates – 8 pm
Game 2: UP Yoddhas vs Haryana Steelers – 9 pm.