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High on confidence after prevailing over UP Yoddha in a high scoring contest the previous night, U Mumba came up against Telugu Titans in the first fixtures of Saturday. They would have fancied their chances against a team that didn't have the best of starts to Season 5 but Rahul Chaudhari led the team on his shoulders with a superlative raiding performance to win the match for his team and bring U Mumba down to the earth.
In the other match, UP Yoddha slumped to another defeat in front of their home crowd. The match followed a pattern similar to their last game where they failed to capitalise on a good start and gave the advantage away to the Steelers in the last few minutes of the game.
Here are the five talking points of the day
#1 A half of contrasting reviews
U Mumba didn't have the best of the nights with reviews and it all started in the first half. Raid machine Rahul Chaudhari's raid attempt was foiled by a group of charging U Mumba men as he found himself thrown out of the mat before he could retreat to safety. But Chaudhari wasn't convinced and sought a review while U Mumba celebrated.
The replays revealed that before Chaudhari was out of the playing area, defender Farhad Rahimi, in his quest to throw him out had stepped into the lobby even before Chaudhari was out. The point soon went in Telugu Titans account.
On another occasion, Anup Kumar ended up wasting the team's review over a bonus when a fellow raider of his claimed that he had successfully got one for the team, only for replays to reveal that his other foot wasn't in air when the first went across the black one. And that's how U Mumba had lost their review even before the first half.
#2 Anup Kumar hammer throws Vinoth Kumar
Even though his team finished on the losing side, U Mumba captain Anup Kumar is slowly crawling back to his best. And when at his best, he can do some jaw dropping things. And jaw dropping is exactly how one would describe his tackle of Titans raider Vinoth Kumar.
The fans at Lucknow were treated to a special moment by Anup Kumar when he was challenged by a raiding Vinoth Kumar. There were not too many U Mumba defenders left on the mat when the raider threatened the left flank but Kumar didn't really need any support as he held Vinoth by his leg, and to ensure he didn't try escaping, pulled him back with such ferocity that he almost ended up drawing an arc with a struggling Vinoth on the mat.
The commentator rightly quipped that it appeared as if Kumar was not a kabaddi player but an exponent of Hammer Throw.
#3 Tomar's miss and Nada's send off
The scores were locked at 6-6 and the first 10 minutes had provided enough evidence that every point was going to count in this game. Yoddha raider Nitin Tomar went determined to break the deadlock as he chased defenders on both the sides of the court in the 10th minute but without much success. As the big man ran from the right to left to try a touch point on Surender Nada, the Steelers captain kept going behind and evaded a charging Tomar.
The Yoddha captain couldn’t control himself and treaded on the white line that denotes the end of the court and the beginning of the lobby. The line, of course, doesn’t belong to the raider and that meant, instead of going back with a point, Tomar ended up conceding one. The reaction of Nada, who gave a send off to Tomar, didn’t please the referee too much and he didn’t take long to pull out the green card from his pocket.
#4 Wazir Singh's moment of heartbreak
Wazir Singh almost gave the moment of the match in the 24th minute. Almost. An All Out loomed large on the men in maroon when Wazir Singh came raiding with two Yoddha men on the mat. For the Yoddha, a super tackle opportunity was on. But Singh was in his elements on Saturday. First, Singh took the right corner with a kick and then overcame the charging left corner to give his team the reason to celebrate an all out as well as two points.
The referee, however, decided to rain on the Steelers parade and ruled that Singh’s kick was not a kick with intent to score but a kick with intent to kick and that’s why his raid didn’t count.
Steelers had some reservations against the decision but there is only so much you can do after the referee has made his decision. Wazir Singh gave no reason for the referee to intervene when he did eventually get his team two points with 10 minutes on the clock to leave the Yoddha tottering with a solitary man on the court.
#5 Mohit Chhillar eventually comes to the party
The match had moved at a breakneck speed and Haryana Steelers had sneaked their way to a position of dominance courtesy Surender Nada’s mind blowing defending. In all that had happened, one man who had hardly found any mention was Steeler’s Mohit Chhillar. But it was Chhillar eventually who made the difference.
First he foiled a raiding attempt with a dash from the right corner to help his team level the scores. And once again in the dying minutes of the game, Chhillar was at it when he brought Nitin Tomar down with a fantastic ankle hold. The match may have belonged to Surender Nada but Chhillar’s late double strikes were what clinched the game for the Steelers.
