Chennai: The Chennai leg of the Pro Kabaddi League season 7 began on a disappointing note for the Tamil Thalaivas in front of their home crowd as the defending champions Bengaluru Bulls defeated them comprehensively wit a scoreline 32-21 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, here, Saturday.
Right from the start, Bengaluru Bulls dominated the proceedings and riding on the raiding prowess of Pawan Kumar Sehrawat, they found themselves 5-0 up in the opening four minutes of the match. Thalaivas’ poor form in the Do-or-Die raids continued as they lost Ajay Thakur and Shabeer Bappu. Bengaluru Bulls soon tackled the last man Manjeet Chillar to inflict the first All-Out of the game and silenced the home crowd as the scoreline read 10-0.
It was only after this the Tamil Thalaivas began to provide any challenge to the defending champions as they tried to scratch their way back into the game by tackled Pawan Sehrawat twice and Shabbir Bapu picked two points in a single raid. In the half-time, Bengaluru Bulls led 17-10.
As the teams resumed play, Tamil Thalaivas reduced Bengaluru’s lead to just five. A failed Do-or-Die raid from Rohit Kumar, a back-kick from raiding Ajay Thakur, and a body grab from Mohit Chillar further reduced the deficit to 19-17.
Their hope of mounting a comeback, however, suffered a major letdown when Ankit raided two players in a single raid and Saurabh Nandal completed his High 5 to restore the seven-point lead.
Tamil Thalaivas succumbed to another All-Out as Pawan Sehrawat completed another Super 10. The home side didn’t show any signs of resurgence and happily surrendered to the loss.
With this win, Bengaluru Bulls moved to the second spot in the points table with 27 points from 8 matches. They take on a feeble Puneri Paltans side on Wednesday, who are withering at the
bottom of the pile.
In the second match of the day, Bengal Warriors and Dabang Delhi played out an entertaining draw, with both teams finishing on 30 points. K. Prapanjan and Naveen Kumar clinched Super
10s for Bengal and Delhi respectively in a high-intensity encounter as both teams missed out on an opportunity to go top of the league table.