Cheered on by vociferous home supporters, and with Roohit Gulia, Sachin, Abozar Mighani and Sukesh Hegde putting up a stellar display, Gujarat Fortunegiants outplayed former champion U Mumba 39-21 in the Vivo ProKabaddi League match at the Arena here on Friday.
Fortunegiants excelled in attack and in defence; in under four minutes, they had their formidable rivals whittled down to just Anup Kumar attacking, with all his team-mates watching from the bench.
And two minutes from the break, it was a similar situation, with substitute Kashiling Adake left with the difficult task. In the event, he crossed the bonus-point line but was brought down by the powerful Fortunegiants defence, and U Mumbai conceded all-out points for the second time in the first half to trail 20-6.
Fortunegiants did suffer a minor setback as coach Manpreet Singh copped a green card for coaching in the closing seconds of the first session.
Hegde, Gulia and Sachin just raked in the points for their side with brilliant running-touch actions, and the Iranian defensive combination of Fazel Atrachali and Abozar Mighani were superb with their tackling to stifle the rival raids.
Anup Kumar was left powerless, drawing a blank on all his raids and earning just a couple of bonus points.
It was Hegde who earned the first point for Fortunegiants with a running hand touch. But the first half — and perhaps the match itself — belonged to the low-profile Gulia, who used his legs to effect deft touches on opponents.
Sachin was in irrepressible form too, and even got into the super-tackle mode to earn multiple points.
This was a fearless, all-round performance by Fortunegiants.
Apart from Anup Kumar’s inability to earn raid points, Shabeer Bapu’s futile raid attempts added to the pressure.
U Mumba earned 15 points in the second session to Fortunegiants’ 19, but had conceded too much of a lead earlier to make a match of it.
Fortunegiants leads the six-team Zone-A with 13 points.
The result:
Gujarat Fortunegiants 39 bt U Mumba 21 .
