Pro Kabaddi League 2018: U Mumba crush Bengal Warriors to lead Zone A
A clinical performance from U Mumba ensured their win over Bengal Warriors and the top spot in Zone A at the Pro Kabaddi League 2018 on Saturday. In the first match of the day, Mumbai took on the Warriors from Bengal, who were 3rd in Zone B.
As a part of the Interzone Challenge Week, teams of Zone A are fighting it out against teams from Zone B, in Vizag. The first points of the match came for the Bengal Warriors with Maninder Singh, their top raider, scoring a touch point on one of the Mumbai defenders. The score was 1 each, before the Bengal defense took out both raiders from Mumbai, Siddhart Desai and Rohit Baliyan that took the score to 3-1. Both these tackles were executed by Baldev Singh, Bengal's right corner.
To add to this, Mumba's captain and left corner, Fazel Atrachali got himself out and raider Vinod Kumar failed in his raid. This left only 3 men in orange jersey on the court, and the scoreline read 5-2.
Then started the comeback act from Mumbai, with a super tackle by Surrender Singh. At the end of the 9th minute, the score was 5-all with 5 players on the mat for both the teams. Bengal again managed to take a 2-point lead, one point each in raiding and defense, and went up 7-6. However, Mumbai again did their best to pull away a super tackle, and took the lead for the first time in the match.
From there, started the U Mumba show. At the end of the first half, the scoreline read 15-9 in Mumba's favour. Mumba had outplayed Bengal in both departments, with 7 points in both raid and defense, against Bengal's 3 in raids and 5 in defense.
In the second half too, Mumba continued the good work, dominating the scoreline. 10 minutes into the second half, Mumbai were 24-12 ahead of the Bengal team. There was a small hint of the comeback from the Boys in Blue, recovering to 15 against 25 of Mumbai, but it did not last too long.
Towards the end, with 2 minutes to go, Fazel Atrachali, executed a tackle single-handedly, pushing the raider Ravindra Kumavat out of the court. The scoreline then was 29-18. At the end of the second half, Mumbai won the match 31-20, topping Zone A.The top scorer of the match was Siddhart Desai, scoring 7 points, making him the highest scorer of the season, with 188 points.
In the second match of the day, first season winners, Jaipur Pink Panthers had another bad day on the mat, losing their 10th match of the season out of the 14 they have played. Telugu Titans won the match 36-26, improving their chances of getting into the play-offs.