Former champion U Mumba warded off a late challenge from Telugu Titans to script a 31-25 win in the Vivo Pro Kabaddi League Season-7 opener at Gachibowli Indoor Stadium here on Saturday.
The home fans were stunned as star raider Siddharth Desai was kept quiet in the first half, his first six raids fetching no points as U Mumba took a 17-10 lead at the break.
In what was expected to be a battle between U Mumba captain and defender Fazel Atrachali and Siddharth, it was the former who dished out a few lessons in the art of tackling by pinning the latter down with support from Rohit Baliyan and Surender Singh.
An all-round display by U Mumba, which scored the first all-out of the game through Abhishek Singh’s raid, powered ahead 13-6.
U Mumba held on to its lead till the break, thanks to the defence manned efficiently by Fazel, Sandeep and Surender.
Rajnish shines
After the break, Titans’ battled back through Rajnish who kept the team in the hunt, especially in the last 20 minutes. He scored seven points and was easily Titans’ best player of the day.
Though Siddharth scored his first point of the game with only eight minutes to go for the final whistle, he recovered to finish with five points. However, he was clearly below par this day.
Thought Titans came up with a super tackle to reduce the lead to 22-30 with two minutes remaining, it proved too little too late.
In the second match of the day, defending champion Bengaluru Bulls began its campaign with a hard-fought 34-32 victory over three-time champions, Patna Pirates, in the second match of the evening.
The results: U Mumba bt Telugu Titans 31-25; Bengaluru Bulls bt Patna Pirates 34-32 .
