Pro Kabaddi: Telugu Titans give U Mumba a reality check ahead of semi-finals
Telugu Titans handed U Mumba their second win of Pro Kabaddi season 2 with a 46-25 score. Despite the best efforts of Pradeep Kumar, who won 12 points for his team, the Titans beat the table toppers with the help of Prashant Rai and Rohit Baliyan.
U Mumba started with the same line-up as they did in their 39-34 win over Patna Pirates with Anup Kumar’s cousin, Pradeep Kumar captaining the side and it was the U Mumba skipper who won the first point of the match. Telugu Titans’ Prashant Rai levelled the score in the next raid and this started a phase where both teams exchanged points till the 5th minute when Isac Antony won a couple of points for the Titans as they took a 7-4 lead after Prashant Rai returned successfully from his raid in the 7th minute.
However, U Mumba won 2 points via a super tackle on Prashant Rai and Bhupender Singh levelled the score in the 9th minute. With both teams at 9 points each after 11 minutes, the Titans scored 7 unanswered points, which included an all out on the league leaders with 4 minutes to go in the half.
At half-time, Telugu Titans led 20-12 as the table toppers were staring at a second loss this season. Without their star players, U Mumba looked clueless and coach Bhaskaran Edachery would have to deliver an inspirational team talk to get his men ready for the second half.
A dominating second half by the Titans
The second half started with U Mumba reducing their deficit to 6 points as Pradeep Kumar scored 2 points in his raid after 2 minutes in the second half. However, by the 25th minute, the Titans had scored 4 more points to increase their lead to 10 points (15-25).
Prashant Rai came up with the raid of the match when he won 3 points to reduce Mumbai to just 1 player in the 30th minute as U Mumba trailed 17-29. Pawan Kumar was caught in the next raid as U Mumba suffered a second all out of the match.
Mumbai had amassed a plethora of points after the 30th minute mark in their last match, but the Titans prevented an encore as they kept on extending their lead and made it 36-20 with 5 minutes to go in the match. And they had increased their lead to 19 with 3 minutes to go, but Pradeep Kumar scored 3 points in his raid to make it 23-39.
The Titans were relentless and outscored the Mumbaikars 7-2 in the final two minutes to end the match with the scoreline reading 46-25 in their favour. Despite their loss, U Mumba finish top of the table while Telugu Titans are right behind them in 2nd place.
Man of the match: Pradeep Kumar