Dabang Delhi continued its winning run in the seventh season of the Pro Kabaddi League after defeating Haryana Steelers 41-21 in a lop-sided game in Mumbai on Sunday.
This is Delhi’s third win of the season and Chandran Ranjit (11 points) and Naveen Kumar (10 points) starred for them.
Naveen grabbed his second ‘Super 10’ of the season after getting the first against Telugu Titans in Hyderabad.
Successful raids by Chandran and Naveen took Delhi 7-3 ahead after first five minutes.
But Haryana reduced the deficit to 6-8 and a successful tackle by the side ensured that Chandran, Delhi’s star raider, was sent out.
However, Delhi, with a ‘Super Tackle’ by Joginder Narwal, followed by a successful raid by Naveen, surged 12-8 ahead.
Then Naveen, who was in spectacular form, in his ‘do or die’ raid collected two points to take Delhi 14-9 ahead.
Delhi had a five-point lead going into the break as the score-line read 15-10.
After the break, Delhi continued the good show by its strong defence and successful raids as it went 18-10 ahead.
Delhi then inflicted an ‘all-out’, the first of the match, to go 22-12 ahead with 15 minutes remaining for the game to finish.
There was no stopping Delhi as it inflicted another ’all out’ on its opponents and extended its lead to 33-16.
Delhi did not give its opponents a chance to make a comeback and won the encounter quite comfortably.
This was Haryana’s first defeat of the season, as it had won its lone game in the Hyderabad leg, which was held before the Mumbai leg.
Pawan-led Bengaluru snatches victory from the hands of the home side
Bengaluru Bulls beat U Mumba 30-26 in a PKL season 7 game at the NSCI Dome in Mumbai. The home team led the game till the 37th minute but one all-out is all that takes to change the course of the game. And that is what happened as a Pawan Sherawat-inspired Bengaluru Bulls came from behind to win a closely-fought game on Super Sunday.
U Mumba won an important toss and followed the tradition by choosing court. The team, playing at home, surged to a 3-1 lead early on as its vociferous fans cheered it on. But the defending-champion Bengaluru registered six consecutive points to reduce U Mumba to just one man.
The lone man and raider Abhishek Singh managed to avoid the all-out as he got a bonus to go along with his touch point. From there, the match was evenly poised as both teams failed to capitalise on good opportunities.
The first-half ended 13-11 in Bengaluru's favour with last year's MVP Pawan Sherawat enjoying reasonable success.
At the beginning of the second-half, U Mumba got five straight points and inflicted the important all-out on Bengaluru. That is when Pawan decided to change gears.
After a brief exchange of points between the two sides, Mumbai was leading Benglauru 23-19 with less than six minutes remaining. Skipper Rohit Kumar went in to raid for the Bulls and he produced the match-changing touch on Surinder Singh.
With the deficit now reduced to three, Pawan started making a mockery of the U Mumba defence as he racked up five raid points from four raids to leave only Rohit Baliyan on the mat for the home side. The Bengaluru-raider also reached his first Super 10 of the season in the process.
In the next few seconds, U Mumba was all-out and Bengaluru snatched the lead from it with two minutes remaining on the clock. In the end, the Bulls were back to winning ways as they claimed an amazing four-point victory.
(With inputs from PTI).
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