Home team Pune Pride got their Parle-G Indo-International Premier League (Parle-G IPKL) campaign off to a perfect start with an overwhelming 43-34 win over the Haryana Heroes at Pune’s Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Balewadi on Monday.

Riding on the performance of their inspirational captain and raider Abdul Sheikh who scored a total o 18 points in the game and was also declared the Parle-G Star of the Match, Pune scored big at crucial junctures of the game to register a comfortable victory in the end.

Jitendra Yadav was the other star for Pune on the day, inflicting a total of 12 tackles as well as scoring five raid points. For Haryana, Vikas Khatri had 11 tackles and eight raid points while Akshy Bodake also had 12-tackles to his name.

The Parle-G IPKL earlier witnessed an energetic opening ceremony to kick-off its inaugural edition with performances by Kayanat Arora and dance group MJ5 among others.

The first of four 10-minute quarters ended with Pune coming from behind to lead 9-7 at the end of it. A Vikas Khatri initiated Super Tackle at a critical juncture of the second quarter put Haryana ahead 14-12 and then another Super Tackle in the quarter meant that Haryana ended the first half of the game narrowly ahead 18-17.

The dimunitive and sleek Abdul Sheikh meanwhile was beginning to have his influence in the game and it was his valuable two-point raid in the dying seconds of the 2^ndquarter that got Pune within one point.

He continued with his good work at the start of the 3^rdquarter, inflicting an ALL OUT on Haryana to start a Pune surge which saw them open up a five point gap with less than half the quarter to go. It ended 29-25 in favour of Pune.

Haryana began the final 10 minutes on a positive note but Pune held on to their lead and a couple of two-point raids once again by Abdul saw the hosts open up a massive 10-point lead with just over 20 seconds to go. 

They eventually closed out the game with a resounding 43-34 points victory.