Riding on fine performances by world championship medallists Vladimir Khinchegashvil, Vasilisa Marzaliuk and India’s Praveen Rana in the deciding bout, Punjab Royals prevailed over Dilli Veer 4-3 in t
Riding on fine performances by world championship medallists Vladimir Khinchegashvil, Vasilisa Marzaliuk and India’s Praveen Rana in the deciding bout, Punjab Royals prevailed over Dilli Veer 4-3 in the Pro Wrestling League in the capital on Friday.
It went down to wire with Punjab and Delhi teams tied at 3-3, before Praveen Rana helped the Royals have the last laugh.
With this defeat, Dilli Veer slumped to their third consecutive loss in the competition.Earlier, the first encounter of the day was a closely-fought contest between Dilli Veer’s Erdenebat Bekhbayar, who is a World Championship bronze medallist, and World Championship gold medal winner Vladimir Khinchegashvil, representing Punjab Royals.
In a fast-paced fascinating battle, the gold medallist Vladimir eked out a narrow 4-3 win over Bekhbayar.In the opening round, Bekhbayar gained the first two points before Vladimir also earned two points to go into the break tied 2-2.
After the break, Bekhbayar could win a point as a result of a caution received by Vladimir and was leading 3-2. But with just a few seconds to go before the final whistle, Vladimir managed to topple his rival to earn important two points to win the bout and give Punjab an early lead.
Rajneesh though managed to come up with a good defense but Ikhtiyor used all his experience to beat the Indian grappler.
After gaining four points in the opening round, Ikhtiyor won six more points in the second round to finish off the bout with two seconds remaining for the match to get over.
World championship bronze medallist Yesilirmak Elif Jale, representing Dilli Veer, then took just 2:01 minutes to down Punjab’s captain and icon player Geeta Phogat 4-1 by fall in the women’s 58kg category. With this bout, Dilli Veer equalled the scores 2-2. But Jargalsaikhan Chuluubat of Punjab Royals gave his team lead once again by getting the better of Krishan of Dilli Veer in the men’s 125kg division.
But Dilli Veer captain Vinesh Phogat brought her team back on track, displaying some solid skills and technique to win the bout against Yana Rattigan of Punjab Royals 15-6 in the women’s 48kg category.
The final bout in men’s 74kg was a neck-and-neck battle between Praveen Rana of Punjab Royals and Dinesh Kumar of Dilli Veer. At the end, it was Praveen, who kept his nerves to overcome Dinesh 6-2 and give Punjab Royals their win.
