Jaipur Pink Panthers came back strongly in the second half against hosts Haryana Steelers as both teams played out a thrilling 27-27 tie in a Pro Kabaddi League Season-5 Zone A contest.
Nitin Rawal emerged the star for Jaipur, scoring 11 points on a night where the famed Jaipur defence had a match to forget. Haryana looked on course for a comfortable victory but could not perform in the second half and had to settle for a tie.
The home side are now on top of the table in Zone A with 49 points from 15 games while the visitors are penultimate in the table with 31 points from 10 games.
Both teams started slowly as it was 2-2 after three minutes. Deepak Kumar Dahiya scored with a two-point raid in the sixth minute to help Haryana stretch the lead to 5-4.
Haryana extended their lead to 8-4 in the ninth minute as Dahiya scored another raid point. Nitin made a successful two-point raid to help Jaipur reduce the deficit to 6-8 in the 10th minute.
Jaipur's defence struggled to contain Haryana raiders as they failed to score a single tackle point in the first 13 minutes. Haryana inflicted an all-out in the 15th minute to lead 14-7.
Nitin scored with another two-point raid as Jaipur trailed 9-14 after 16 minutes before Haryana gained three more points to lead 17-9 at half time. The Jaipur defence could not muster a single tackle point in the entire first half.
Coming back, Jaipur scored their first tackle point in the 22nd minute to trail 11-17 before adding another three points in just under two minutes to reduce the gap further to 16-22 after 29 minutes.
Jasvir Singh made a successful raid in the 30th minute as Jaipur trailed 17-23. Haryana failed to get on the scoresheet as often as they did in the first half and only managed to score just six points in the first 12 minutes of the second half.
Deepak got Haryana's scored ticking with a raid point to make it 24-19 after 33 minutes before Nitin came up with a super raid in the 35th minute to help Jaipur reduce the home team's advantage to 22-25.
Jaipur inflicted an all-out in the next minute to level the match at 25-25 before both the teams scored a tackle point each in the next two minutes to equalise at 26-26.
The drama continued on till the last minute when Surjeet Singh made a successful raid for Haryana before Jaipur also gained one point to tie the match.
