Chennai: Tamil Nadu were staring at defeat. Without Pratham Singh, who was down with illness, and with Mihir Pandey looking out of touch, they were down by 16 points at the start of the second quarter and by six by the end of the third. In the fourth quarter, with Rikin Pethani too evicted after his fifth foul, they were looking for inspiration from somewhere. They were looking for some heroes.
And they emerged. In Abhilek Paul, who coolly buried a three-pointer to reduce the lead to a point and in Raghu Ram who flew in, made the basket, and hit the turf with a thud to draw the foul, they found their heroes. There were heroes elsewhere too. Like Akilan P, who covered the court with unbelievable energy and snatched the ball from Trideep Rai in the final seconds when a three-pointer could have won it for Uttarakhand, they arrived in the nick of time. And gave the crowd its voice.
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