Gujarat Fortunegiants continued their brilliant run on home turf as they recorded their third victory on the trot at The Arena in Ahmedabad on Sunday evening beating Jaipur Pink Panthers 27-20, courtesy of a solid defensive show. Sukesh Hegde won the toss to kick-start the proceedings of the evening. It started with a couple of empty raids from Jaipur’s Tushar Patil and Hegde himself. The first point of the match was won from Abozar Mighani’s ankle hold tackle on Jaipur’s Jasvir Singh. The third minute saw the first do-or-die raid of the match where Rohit Gulia failed to score and gifted Jaipur their first point of the match.

Both the teams were competing with similar mindset, not allowing the opponents to get ahead by keeping plenty of focus on defence, and going for the kill only in do-or-die raids. The two top moments of the half came from Gujarat’s Sachin who almost pulled off a super raid in the 14th minute but was awarded two points, and Jaipur’s Nitin Rawal, whose inch-perfect dubki bamboozled the Gujarat defence as he also fetched two points for his team. It was a neck-and-neck first half and both teams went into the breather at 10-10.

The second half also started with two empty raids and again defensive approach taking over. From the 25th minute onwards, Gujarat, however, started picking up points regularly with everything clicking for them in both departments. The 31st minute saw the first All-Out of the match for Jaipur as Manjeet Chhillar was tackled off the mat. Jaipur failed to match Gujarat’s brilliance as the home team marched on to their third successive home victory.

Gujarat’s defence made the real difference with Fazel Atrachali and Mighani picking up 4 points apiece on a day captain Hegde did not secure a single point. But Sachin had yet another good day at the office and returned seven points. Clearly, the influence of Atrachali, Mighani and Sachin worked wonders for the home team.