After winning the toss, the captain and icon player of the Haryana Hammers, Yogeshwar Dutt blocked out the men’s 97Kg category while his counterpart and UP Warriors captain Babita Kumari, desperately hoping for a turn of fortunes in the tournament, chose to block out the women’s 58Kg category.
The first bout of the night featured the men’s 57 Kg category, with Ukranian Sergey Ratushniy taking to the mat for the home team UP Warriors against Nitin Rathee representing the Haryana Hammers.
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It was the Indian who broke the deadlock on the night after successfully shooting for a single leg takedown and taking a 2-0 lead halfway through the first round. The score remained intact to usher in the end of the round as both men were cautious in not committing too much for the fear of being countered.
The second round began much in the same fashion in which the first was closed out with both men adopting a defence first approach, before each granting the other 1 penalty point for a technical foul apiece, before closing out an uneventful first bout in favour of the Haryana Hammers 3-1.
Without the ideal start they were hoping for, another Ukranian, Kogut Oleksandra had an opportunity to put the home team on the scoreboard against Nirmal Devi of the Haryana Hammers in the second bout of the night.
After another cautious start to the bout, Oleksandra shot for a single leg takedown, only to be stuffed expertly by Nirmal Devi to open the account for the Haryana team 1-0. Before long though, the Ukrainian returned the favour to tie up the score at 1-1 heading into the break,
Despite both grapplers taking turns to unsuccessfully shoot for single leg takedowns in the second round, the score remained resolutely tied at 1-1 until Oleksandra managed to pick the lock and take Nirmal Devi’s back to race to a 6-1 lead and subsequently hang on to put the UP warriors on the scoreboard with an eventual 6-4 victory.
The third match-up of the night was a men’s 125 Kg clash between Joginder Kumar for the UP Warriors stepping up against Hitender representing the Haryana Hammers. It was Hitender who made early inroads by transitioning beautifully to take Joginder’s back after initially trying to force him out of bounds to lead 2-0. The clock for the first round was then run down with neither wrestler giving ground and the scoreline intact.
Despite Joginder’s best attempts to try and force his opponent out of bounds in the second round, Hitender displayed balance belying his frame as he reversed masterfully to take Joginder down with a double leg takedown and doubled his lead to 4-0. That was how the scoreline remained as Hitender’s display put the Haryana Hammers back in the driving seat with an overall lead of 2-1 after the completion of 3 bouts.
We neared the half-way mark of the night’s wrestling action on display with the onset of the fourth bout of the night in the Women’s 69 Kg category, that saw the 2013 World Championship gold medalist Alina Stadnik Makhinia take to the mat for the home team against the Haryana Hammer’s representative Geetika Jakhar.
It was the home team’s grappler that tasted early success after displaying tremendous upper body strength to force her opponent out of bounds and subsequently kept piling on the pressure to take Geetika’s back twice in quick succession to race to a 5-0 lead. The lead was further extended to 7 points in the dying seconds of the round with Alina again managing to take Geetika’s back.
It was more of the same in the second round as Alina made full use of her height and reach advantage to race to a 9-0 lead; dangerously close to calling an early end to proceedings under the technical superiority rule, which was also promptly achieved with 15 seconds left in the round. Alina took a dominating victory with a scoreline of 11-0, thereby also taking the overall score to 2-2 leading up to the 5th bout of the night.
The men’s 74Kg division was up next with Purevjav Unurbat representing the UP warriors and 2012 Olympic Games bronze medalist Livan Lopez Azcuy stepping up for the Haryana Hammers. With both grapplers displaying solid defence in the starting stages of the round, it was Azcuy who made the first impression on the scoreboard by edging to a 1-0 lead and quickly doubling it to enter the break with some breathing room for the Haryana Hammers with a 2-0 lead.
The second round began in a more lively manner with Unurbat understandably trying to bridge the gap, but was met with masterful defence by Azcuy time and again. But he managed to soon cut the lead to a slender point, before Livan Lopez put the match-up beyond doubt in the closing seconds of the second round to take the bout with a scoreline of 4-1, also giving Haryana Hammers the edge in the overall score with a lead of 3-2 over the home team.
The sixth bout presented a must win scenario for the UP Warriors that fittingly saw it’s captain and icon player Babita Kumari walk out to take on Tatyana Kit of the Haryana Hammers in the Women’s 53Kg category. After a tense couple of opening minutes, the pressure and aggression of Tatyana eventually broke the deadlock as she took Babita’s back to lead 2-0 heading into the break.
Tatyana’s pressure did not recede after the restart as she shot into a single leg and transitioned beautifully to take Babita’s back again to race to a 6-0 lead. However, this only sparked a rapid comeback from the Indian who responded with three successive takedowns of her own to tie up the score at 6-6 with lesser than a minute left on the clock.
Babita then sent the home fans that had arrived in force into raptures with an unbelievable comeback victory after taking Tatyana’s back again in the dying seconds to take the score to 8-6 in favour of the UP Warriors, thereby also keeping the home team in the hunt with the overall score tied up at 3-3 heading into the final bout of the night.
The final and tie-breaking bout of the night featured youngster Vikas Kumar taking to the mat for the UP Warriors against veteran and Haryana Hammers’ Icon player Jogeshwar Dutt. The first round expectedly began with fireworks that saw both grapplers display great technical ability in reversing the other’s attacking tackle, with the momentum of the match swinging one way then the other. Surprisingly, it was the youngster Vikas Kumar who led 4-3 after the completion of the first round.
The veteran wasted no time at the start of the second round in forcing Vikas Kumar out of bounds to tie up the score at 4-4, before astutely capitalising on his opponent’s mistake of switching off for a moment to pin him and thereby secure a 9-4 victory to condemn the UP Warriors to yet another gut-wrenching defeat.
