Led by a rampaging Surender Gill, the UP Yoddhas beat the Telugu Titans 48-33 at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday. Gill (14) and Titans’ superstar Pawan Sehrawat (11) both got super 10s, in a high-scoring second game of the day.
The clash had been billed as one between the leading raiders of both teams, Pardeep Narwal and Pawan Sehrawat, two men who have been the top-scoring raiders over the past four seasons of the PKL. As it was, Sehrawat was tackled on his very first raid of the evening, allowing the Yoddhas to draw first blood. The Yoddhas capitalised on that brilliantly and inflicted the first all-out soon after to race into a 10-3 lead.
Not to be outdone by the higher-profile raiders on either side of him, Surender Gill took it upon himself to take charge of the game. His super raid to take out Ankit and Milad Jabbari helped the Yoddhas take a huge lead.
The Titans clawed some of it back, as the half wore on. Milad’s super tackle got rid of Gill for the first time in the evening and the teams went into the break with the Titans down by 4 points. Despite some dogged defending by the Titans duo of Mohit and Milad, the Yoddhas inflicted a second all-out to take a nine-point lead with ten minutes of the game left. Thereafter, the Yoddhas ensured that the Titans did not get any sniff at a comeback.