Punjab Thunder beat Royal Kings USA and maintain their standings in the league table.
Punjab Thunder Vs. Royal Kings USA
Amritsar, September 28, 2014: It was once again a case of a fine comeback in the second half, as Punjab Thunder bounced back from their Saturday’s defeat to beat Royal Kings USA 59-54 in the second match of the Wave World Kabaddi League on Sunday in the triple header in Amritsar came to a thrilling end.
With both matches on Sunday being close and providing results with margins of five or lesser points, the Wave WKL is becoming an extremely close affair. For Punjab Thunder, it was their fourth win in nine matches and put alongside the tie they had with Khalsa Warriors in Ludhiana, they now have nine points and went up into the third position behind Khalsa Warriors (19 points from 10 matches) and Lahore Lions (10 points from seven matches). However, Royal Kings USA continued to stay at the bottom with two points from 10 matches.
Four teams, United Singhs, Yo Yo Tigers, California Eagles and Vancouver Lions have eight points each. While United Singhs have played eight matches, all others have played nine matches. Sultan Singh started the first raid for Punjab Thunder and successfully converted it to earn the first point for the team. Royal Kings USA played equally well and successfully converted their raids and went into a small lead after two minutes. Yadwinder Singh made the first stop for Royal Kings USA. Soon in the fourth min Yadwinder Singh again successfully stopped a raid by Sultan Singh of Punjab Thunder. But Punjab Thunder fought back and levelled the scores 10-10 in the seventh minute. But by the end of the session, Royal Kings USA again opened a slight lead to go 14-11 up.
In the second quarter, Royal Kings USA kept their lead with smart play, though there were times Punjab Thunder came close to equalising the score with their raiders Harbir Singh and Sultan Singh earning points in two successive raids and brought the score to 15-16. But Royal Kings were once again aggressive and earned five straight points. Narvinder, Bohar and Balram made successful raids where as Harwinder and Makhan snatched points by stopping their opponents. With this five-point gain and an excellent momentum Royal Kings closed the session still ahead at 27-24.
It was in the third session that Punjab Thunder came back strongly. By the 26th minute Punjab Thunder got back to 34 – 34. Sultan Singh and Baljeet Singh were the top raiders of Punjab Thunder with seven and five raids respectively, while Rana Alishan was star stopper for them. That turned the tide in Punjab Thunder’s favour to 42 – 39 by the end of the third quarter.
Riding high on the handy lead Punjab Thunder kept the stranglehold in the fourth quarter with the help of their star raiders Sultan Singh and Baljit Singh. Sultan Singh led from the front with his 22 successful raids. On the other hand, Rana Alishan held fort strongly as a stopper. Royal Kings tried hard but Punjab Thunder hung in to win 59-54.
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