Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: Five talking points from Day 3 of PKL 5
The third day of the Pro Kabaddi League saw the debut of one new franchise, Haryana Steelers against the champions from the second season, U Mumba. The Sunday showdown began with a bang, with a close encounter in the first match, against two sides which looked quite evenly place, but U Mumba claiming the glory at the fag end.
The second encounter of the day featured the home team, Telugu Titans take the battle across to the Bengaluru Bulls.
#1: U Mumba early loss of review cause them headaches later
Anup Kumar is a key tactician and is not often that he uses the review and it is deemed as unsuccessful by the TV umpire. Well, this rare feat transpired very early into U Mumba's match against the Haryana Steelers. Shabeer Bapu when on a raid, with his swift directional change left Surender Nada off-balanced on the left corner causing him to fall down quite next to the side line. Then he went on to attempt a bonus point on the opposite end which was manned by Mohit Chhillar however, not a single point was given by the umpires on the mat.
Both the facts were reviewed by Anup, possibly displaying faith in Shabeer's confidence, but replays from different angles made it evident that neither was Nada self-out nor had Shabeer clinched a bonus point. Thus, a lapse of judgement on the captain's part saw U Mumba lose their all-important review early on in the match.
He possibly regretted the same in the second half when Anup himself wanted to challenge a touch point given to Steelers' Vikas Kandola and had to make his way to the bench.