Puneri Paltan edged out a Telugu Titans after surviving a second-half scare before defeating Telugu Titans 42-37 in the Pro Kabaddi League’s second Inter Zone Challenge Week at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on Friday. It was just a one-way traffic for Paltan who took a 18-0 lead in nine minutes and had a 14-point lead at the break but Titans replied strongly to reduce the deficit to 40-36 with two minutes left on the clock, reported PTI.

Playing their first match after a 11-day break, Paltan looked fresh and thwarted any further inroad by the southern outfit. Defender Girish Erak made a super tackle on Rahul Chaudhari with a minute left to make it 36-42, which pretty much sealed the game. Ernak also won the Moment-of-the-Match for his brilliant super tackle in the dying minutes.

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Captain Deepak Hooda was their star raider with nine points as the Paltan outfit, who have played just eight matches, secured their sixth win to climb past Jaipur Pink Panthers to fourth place with 31 points in Zone A. Telugu Titans’ qualifying hope got a big blow with their ninth loss from 13 matches as they remained on fourth place with 24 points. The match looked terribly lopsided in favour of Pune who had a commanding 22-1 lead after 12 minutes and were 26-12 ahead at half-time.

But, there was some relief for Titans who rode on Rahul Chaudhari (9 raid points) and Sombir’s (4 tackle points) combined effort to claw back in the game in the second-half. A super raid from Rahul Chaudhari gave them three points to narrow down the deficit to 27-39 with five minutes left on the clock. But Pune held on with their defence packing a punch.

Hosts play out tie

The Kolkata leg of the Pro Kabaddi League drew to a close with Bengal Warriors and Dabang Delhi playing out a 31-31 tie. The match was closely contested with Warriors understandably conservative with their raids as they had suffered two consecutive defeats coming into the contest.

Dabang Delhi, on the other hand, had comfortably beaten Bengaluru Bulls. The score was 12-12 at half time. Maninder Singh took 13 points, which gave Warriors the lead. The visitors, though, bounced back in the final minutes of the game moments and levelled scores. Bulls’ Anand Patil made a successful raid with 30 seconds to go in the game.