Thalaivas suffers first defeat

Thalaivas had played out a 40-40 tie against Telugu Titans in its tournament opener on Wednesday. On Friday, captain Pawan Sehrawat (9 points) led the charge, and was ably assisted by his raiding partners Chandran Ranjit (7 points) and Bharat (5 points) as Bengaluru recovered from its opening day’s loss.

Both defences looked strong and kept a high line in the first half, where raiders found it difficult to create a meaningful impact. The Thalaivas defensive department, led by experienced skipper PO Surjeet Singh, kept Pawan and Ranjit quiet as there was little to separate between the two teams.

At the other half of the mat, the Thalaivas raiding combination of Manjeet and K Prapanjan found points hard to come by against a disciplined Bulls defence. The first turning point of the southern rivalry was provided by Bharat, who took over the raiding duties after his team’s main-two struggled to collect points.

His reach caused troubles in the Thalaivas defence and helped the Bulls secure its first ‘All Out’ in the 18th minute. Bengaluru held a 6-point advantage heading into the break, with the scorecard reading 19-13 in its favour. However, Thalaivas roared back into the match by beginning the second period on a high.

Surjeet and Sahil Singh came up with stellar tackles on the Bulls raiders while Manjeet ensured Thalaivas inflicted its first ‘All Out’ in the 24th minute. To everyone’s surprise, Thalaivas was in the lead after five minutes of action in the second half.

Both teams continued to trade blows as the scoreline read 25-25 with 10 minutes remaining on the clock. Bengaluru then moved ahead in the clash by delivering an ‘All Out’ in the 33rd minute, thanks to Ranjit’s crucial raids and some successful tackles.

Despite Bhavani Rajput’s (8 points) valiant raiding efforts for Thalaivas, Bulls held on to its lead in the final minutes. Bulls defender Saurabh Nandal bagged his ‘High 5’ (5 tackle points) in what was the last move of the fixture. Thalaivas would be disappointed with the result as it failed to collect even a single point from the encounter.

RESULT: Bengaluru Bulls 38 bt Tamil Thalaivas 30

Delhi, Bengal earn close wins

Naveen Kumar (17 points) starred for Dabang Delhi, which got the better of U Mumba by a scoreline of 31-27. Young sensation Naveen was the point of positive difference, in a match that was tightly contested. Delhi now has 2 victories from as many matches. In the last fixture of the day, defending champion Bengal Warriors edged out Gujarat Giants 31-28, courtesy of raider Rakesh Narwal, who earned as many as 12 points. Bengal notched up its second successive triumph, while Gujarat tasted defeat for the first time.