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Kolkata: If the beginning of Kolkata leg of Pro-kabaddi League was surreal, the ending was just spectacular. While AKFI PPresident and state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee and Sports Minister Madan Mitra didn’t miss a game, the last day’s glamour parade was led by Junior Bachchan. Sayantika and Srabanti from Tollywood spiced up oomph quotient on the VIP row. Meanwhile, former captain of Indian football team Baichung Bhutia, tennis icon Jaidip Mukherjea came to show their solidarity with sport.
The Bengal Warriors and U Mumba match began in right earnest, with no sides offering a quarter. By the time the first technical timeout was taken the dhakis were beating the drums lustily and the cheerleaders for Bengal went wild. After going neck and neck till 10 minutes, Bengal team was slapped with three penalty points and that was enough for U Mumba to take off. At lemon break they led 22-12.
In the second session Mumba kept up the tempo with their impeccable take downs and precision attacks. Mumba captain Anup Kumar led from the front along with Rishank Devadiga. In defence Shabeer and Surinder, Mohit and Md Zaiur showed great teamwork working down the left and middle. Bengal took a desperate measure bring out Kim in place of Praveen Kumar. But it made no difference to the fate of the match. Mumba decided to play safe in their raids keeping the numbers up in defence and holed out to trap Bengal raiders in smart take downs. At 37-27 the match was all but settled in favour of the visitors with just three minutes left.
Mumba took the tie 38-29 to register another thumping victory and stay perched on top of the ladder. Bengal remained on the fourth spot. Mumba skipper Anup Kumar who has 64 raid points from 5 matches is one of the top raiders, but the raider of the match was Shabeer. And Mohit got the best defender’s award.
Team Jaipur is on a roll bulldozing teams in their stride. They began the first game of the evening in a whirlwind fashion and raced to 18-4 lead against the Patna Pirates who were at sea in front of the blitzkrieg attack and rock solid defence. Jasvir Singh and Maninder Singh were again brilliant in their raids. The Pink Panthers walloped the Pirates 40-17.Maninder Singh was the best raider of the match, while Rohit Rana was the best defender.
