Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: Five best matches from Nagpur leg of PKL 5
Nagpur hosted the home leg for the Bengaluru Bulls with the team not playing at the Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore this season. The home stand meant the Bulls were in action on every night of the Nagpur leg.
We had a look at the best matches at the end of the Hyderabad leg and likewise here we look back at the best encounters from the Nagpur leg.
#1 Match 12 - Bengaluru Bulls v Tamil Thalaivas - Bulls won 32-31
In the 8th minute of this game, the Bulls led 12-3. With five minutes still to be played in the first half, they held a 21-5 advantage and closed the half with a 17-point advantage. One feared the worst for the Thalaivas - their own mistakes were costing them big as Amit Hooda's advance tackles were proving costly and Ajay Thakur went cold. The Bulls were rampant and with such a sizable advantage, the game was as good as done.
Yet in a spectacular turn of events in the second half, the Thalaivas got their game together to mount some pressure on the Bulls and the team from Bengaluru imploded as their opponents began to whittle down the deficit.
The Thalaivas' massive comeback started with the introduction of Korean Dong Geon Lee into the game. The Thalaivas needed a lift in their raiding department and the Korean provided it. Their defence got better and they managed to restrict the likes of Rohit Kumar and Ajay Kumar. Despite all of that though, the Bulls still led 31-22 with just five minutes remaining in the match.
And then the meltdown happened - Prapanjan, Lee and Ajay Thakur launched a full-on assault on the Bulls with some timely advice from their coach K. Baskaran. The Bulls crumbled under the pressure and as the Thalaivas raiders kept the successful raids coming, the lead was cut to one point at 32-31 with under a minute left in the contest.
Bulls captain Rohit Kumar though provided a successful raid at just the right time to give his side a vital 2-point lead that saw them win the game in the end. The Thalaivas were denied at the very end, while for the Bulls it served as an important warning about the unpredictability of Pro Kabaddi.