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U Mumba returned to winning ways against Bengal Warriors after getting hammered by Jaipur Pink Panthers in their last tie which saw their 8-match winning streak come to an end. The team in orange beat the Warriors 31-17 to move to the top of the table, displacing Telugu Titans. Bhupender Singh delivered the goods for U Mumba by getting 6 points. Jang Kun Lee looked all out of sorts today as he earned just 1 point from his 9 raids.
Both teams captains – Jang Kun Lee and Anup Kumar – started the proceedings for the respective teams in the match, but returned empty-handed. Mahendra Rajput claimed to have won the first point of the match, but was, correctly, given out after U Mumba reviewed the decision.
Anup and Pradeep Kumar earned their first touch points of the day and within 6 minutes, U Mumba led 4-1. Bengal Warriors’ defence came into play and reduced the deficit to just 1 point after successfully blocking Bhupender Singh.
Both the sides continued to earn touch points in the next minutes and with the clock reading 13 minutes, U Mumba were leading 7-3. The Warriors were down to just 3 men and had a chance for a super tackle and earn 2 points, but Bhupender Singh got a touch and got the opponents on the verge of an all out. The last man for the Warriors, Nilesh Shinde, was caught out in the next raid as U Mumba enforced the first all-out of the match on the Warriors to end the first half on a positive note.
U Mumba led 15-6 at half-time while Anup Kumar reached another milestone in his stellar PKL career as he completed his 50 raid points in this season of the League.
Bengal’s fight back was not enough
U Mumba started the second half on the same note where they left at the end of first half and increased their lead to 12 points through Bhupender Singh. Mahendra Rajput tried to reduce the gap, but was thwarted on plenty occasions by the attentive Mumbai defence.
Bengal’s Kedar Lal earned 2 points in a fantastic raid to reduce the gap to 10 points. U Mumba were down to just 2 men when Kedar Lal again put in a fine raid to earn 2 points for the second time in the half. Bengal Warriors inflicted U Mumba with their first all-out after Anup Kumar was brilliantly caught by the Warriors’ defence as they showed the crowd that there was still life left in them.
Bhupender and Pradeep Sharma increased Mumbai’s lead to 8 points with successful raids as U Mumba got Bengal Warriors all-out for the second time in the match and put the final nail in the coffin for the Warriors. They led by 13 points with just 3 minutes left on the clock.
Kedar Lal tried to turn Warriors’ fortunes around with a brilliant display in the second half, but that was note enough as U Mumba went on to win the match 31-17. This was their 9th win from 10 matches for U Mumba and saw the team from Mumbai take the position at the top of the table once again. U Mumba take on Bengaluru Bulls in their next match while Bengal Warriors would be facing Puneri Paltan in their next tie.
Man of the match: Bhupender Singh
