Pro Kabaddi League: Gujarat Giants celebrate a hard-fought victory over UP Yoddhas

The opposition side pinned their hopes on raider Surender Gill, and both teams scored and squandered points. Nine minutes into the game, Pardeep Narwal secured a super-raid to put UP in the lead. 

After a stunning raid, Ranjit subsequently pulled his team back to the front at 12-11. However, in the 12th minute, the Yoddhas inflicted an all-out and reasserted dominance at 16-14. 

Shortly after, they increased the gap to four points. The score was 19-15 in favour of UP Yoddhas. They held their footing till the end of the first half. Despite Ranjit and Rakesh's efforts to strike more raids, Yoddha led at 21-19. 

The Giants retaliated with an intimidating all-out in the opening minutes of the second half and regained the lead at 25-23. Ranjit's super raid minutes later effectively crushed Yoddha's defence. 

In the 28th minute, Gujarat's second all-out stretched the gap in score to 37-29. Rakesh was at the top of his game as the match progressed into their third all-out of the day. 

They led the Yoddhas 49-38, and Pardeep Narwal's last-minute super raid paled compared to the spirit shown by the Giants, who retained their lead until the end. They will now face the Haryana Steelers on October 22.

Bengaluru Bulls defeat Tamil Thalaivas to move up to third place

Bengaluru Bulls secured an important win against the Tamil Thalaivas and claimed the third spot in the rankings. As a packed crowd at the Shree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium cheered them on, the Bulls won 45-28 in what seemed to be a highly one-sided match.

Bharat walked away with 12 points, followed by Vikash Kandola (seven points) and Neeraj Narwal (five points). Both teams put equal pressure in the starting minutes, and they had a significant trade-off. 

However, Bengaluru was determined to break their two-match losing streak and seized the lead in the first half. Bharat dazzled the audiences with a crucial super raid eliminating M Abishek, K. Abhimanyu, and V Visvanath. 

It ended up being their first all-out of the game, giving the Bulls an 11-5 lead. The Thalaivas closed in on the lead and earned bonus points. However, before the Thalaivas could make any significant improvement, the Bulls took over. 

Neeraj Narwal was brilliant as both raider and defender as the Bulls led 18-12 into the second half. The Thalaivas avoided facing another all-out, but Aashish's well-timed super tackle sabotaged Kandola's efforts.

Bharat then executed a two-point raid that helped the Bulls inflict another all-out on the Thalaivas, and the former led 27-18. Despite another counter-attack by the Tamil Nadu-based side, they succumbed to one more all-out and lost the match.