Hyderabad: Telugu Titans managed to get their third consecutive win of the season after overcoming a nail-biting contest against Tamil Thalaivas in the Southern Derby.
Led by Pawan Sehrawat’s 12 points and contributions from Ashish Narwal and Vijay Malik, they got over the line despite Sachin scoring a mammoth 17 points for Tamil Thalaivas here on Wednesday night.
It was a watchful start from both sides as Ashish Narwal and Narender Kandola exchanged early blows to get the ball rolling.
After a tight start, it was Pawan Sehrawat who sprang into action to inflict an All-Out on Tamil Thalaivas, giving Telugu Titans a four-point lead.
Sachin didn’t waste much time to make his presence felt either, managing a Super Raid to close the gap for Tamil Thalaivas to two points after the first quarter of the game.
However, it was the duo of Pawan Sehrawat and Ashish Narwal that kept Telugu Titans in the lead as the two combined for 10 touch points in the first half, with the score at 20-17 after the first 20 minutes.
Slowly but steadily, Tamil Thalaivas managed to claw their way back into the contest in the second half. Sachin reached a significant milestone of 1000 raid points in PKL and followed it up by completing his Super 10 in the game, giving his side a brief lead.
Despite Tamil Thalaivas building on that momentum and inflicting an All-Out, Ashish Narwal made sure that the two teams stayed neck and neck at 25 points each.
After a quiet period in the second half, the heavyweight battle between the two star raiders continued.
Pawan Sehrawat showed his class once more, scoring a Super Raid to complete his Super 10 and put Telugu Titans back on top by 3 points. That was before Sachin got a two-point raid of his own, keeping his side in the hunt.
Sachin then went on to complete 17 raid points in the match and put the pressure back on Telugu Titans.
With the game going down to the wire and only one point separating the two sides, it was Ankit who executed a superb tackle on Sachin to seal the deal for Telugu Titans.