Eagles fight back but narrowly miss out on victory

In the Northern derby, the atmosphere at the Motilal Nehru School of Sports, Haryana was totally electrifying. We had made three changes in our line-up. Meraj's presence on the mat was missed yesterday but the standing captain, Sunil Kumar led the team well in his absence. The match started on a defensive note, where both the teams took their precious time before displaying some fireworks. Rohit Baliyan (7 points) continued to his rich form from the last match, he was well supported by Abolfazl (4 points), who chipped in with some crucial points. Till the half way stage we were trailing 17-8. Eagles started their fightback in the second half, as we've done in earlier games.

Post Interval the game was all open. Anand Patil (4 points) came hard on the Steelers. Abolfazl inflicted an all-out just, when we needed something special from the Iranian beast. After the break, the plan was to play smart by not committing silly errors that we did in the first half. Captain, Sunil (1 point) led the troops well as he himself played well in the left corner , while Satpal (2 points) was sharp with the tackles. The Dabangs gave their best in the second-half but mistakes that we committed in the start, took the game away from us. In the end we lost the encounter by 27-24. Eagles gave their hearts out but fell short by 3 points in a close encounter.

Talking about Haryana Steelers, Wazir Singh was once again the go to man for them as he took his team home comfortably. He also fetched 5 vital points in a single raid itself, that changed the equation of the game completely. Though the result didn't go in our favour but we gave our best as we are proud of our Dabangs. We have some time to regroup from here on as we face Jaipur Pink Panthers in Ranchi on 17th September.