The Gujarat Giants began their campaign with an impressive win over the Bengaluru Bulls in the season opener. However, in our second match against U Mumba, we encountered a tough challenge, suffering a 27-33 defeat in Hyderabad. It was a close contest throughout, and although we fought hard, it wasn't our night as U Mumba managed to edge us out in the end.
U Mumba took an early lead when Manjeet earned a touch point off Neeraj, and they followed it up by scoring another point. Sombir brought us back into the game with a successful tackle, and Parteek earned a bonus point to make the score 2-3. We quickly turned the momentum in our favour as Jitender pulled off a well-timed tackle, followed by a successful raid from Guman, giving us a 5-3 lead. Jitender continued his excellent performance, adding another tackle to stretch the score to 6-4 in our favour.
Despite our early dominance, U Mumba responded with determination, quickly turning the score around to 6-7. The match continued to be a closely contested affair as both teams exchanged points. U Mumba gained control for a short while before a brilliant Super Tackle from our side levelled the score at 9-9. However, U Mumba came back strong again and inflicted an All Out at the start of the second half, pushing the score to 13-18 in their favour.
In the second half, we tried our best to close the gap, but U Mumba kept building on their lead. The score soon moved to 25-19 as U Mumba capitalised on their momentum. We continued to fight, and toward the end of the game, we managed to pull off another Super Tackle to reduce the deficit, but it was too late to change the outcome. The final whistle blew with the score at 27-33 in U Mumba’s favour.
Although the result didn’t go our way, we put up a solid fight and showed resilience throughout the game. There is still a long way to go in the tournament, and we remain confident in our skills. Our next match is against the UP Yoddhas on 27th October in Hyderabad, and we're determined to get back to winning ways.