Jaipur: Rajasthan Patriots – the Krida Pvt Ltd own franchise competing in the inaugural season of the Premier Handball League (PHL) went down to Maharashtra Ironmen 28-38 in the first semifinal played here at Raja Sawai Mansingh Indoor Stadium, Jaipur. For the Patriots, Amrinder Singh and Arjun Lakra were the top scorers with 7 and 5 goals respectively. Sumit Kumar walked away with the Goal of The Match award on a heart breaking day for the Patriots.
The crowd were out in numbers to support the home side led by Sharath Kelkar who has starred in many Indian TV series and was the voice behind the Hindi version of Bahubali toning the white of the Patriots.
The first half saw a slow start as both the teams opened their account in the 3rd minute of the game. Ironmen scored 3 goals in quick succession and raced ahead with the score reading 4-1 in the 7th minute.
However, strikes by Arjun Lakra and Dmitiri Kireev helped the Patriots cut down the deficit to just a single goal as the scorecard read 6-7. Later, some unforced errors cost the Patriots which increased the gap between the two teams by 6 goals in the 22nd minute. A period of good attacking play saw the Patriots reducing the Ironmen lead to just 3 goals at half time with the score reading 14-17 in the favour of Maharashtra.
The second half saw both teams trading goals at each end but it was Ironmen who took the initiative and carried the momentum. Amrinder Singh played his heart out to keep the Patriots in the game as the scorecard read 19-22 by the eighth minute of the second half. The Patriots were just 3 goals behind with just 11 minutes of the match to be played but the efforts of the Patriots were threated by Ironmen goalkeeper Naveen Deshwal who was in sublime form as he denied Rajasthan’s attackers on multiple occasions.
Maharashtra then took the charge and outplayed the Patriots taking a 10 goal lead by the closing minutes. The hosts were denied their entry into the finals by the Ironmen as the final score read 28 – 38 in favour of them.
