Nitin Tomar, with 6 points, starred in his debut match in Star Sports Pro Kabaddi as Bengal Warriors put forth an all-round performance to beat Telugu Titans 17-25. Thus, the team in yellow ended their home campaign with 2 wins and 2 losses.
In a slow start, it took upto 2 minutes for either team to notch up the first point of the match when Rohit Baliyan was tackled by an alert Bengal Warriors team. However, in the resulting raid, Telugu Titans returned the favour by catching hold of Mahendra Rajput. The home team took a 2-point lead in the 7th minute through Rahul Chaudhari’s successful raid and a bold, yet successful, tackle on Mahesh Goud.
But, the visitors came roaring back as they took just 3 minutes to level the score at 5 each. Buoyed by an energetic home support, Rahul Chaudhari’s men took a 3-point lead (9-6) with 4 minutes to go in the half. Despite the home team’s best efforts, the visitors hit back once again to level the score in the buzzer raid when Dharmaraj Cheralathan had a rush of blood to the head and a calm Rajput jumped over him to make it 9-9 at half-time.
HT: Telugu Titans 9-9 Bengal Warriors
Inspite of a cagey first half, the second half started with a flurry of points when Rohit Baliyan won 2 points for the home team in his raid. Mahendra Rajput hit back with a point for his team in the next raid, but in the 25th minute, Meraj Sheykh, in his first raid of the match, showed his quality by returning with 2 points to create breathing space between the two teams.
The Warriors didn’t take long to restore parity in the game as Nitin Tomar won 3 points in 2 raids to silence the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium, which was bouncing before. With the scores level at 14 each with 10 minutes to go, the visitors raced clear of the home team. After Meraj was tackled by the Warriors defence, Nitin reduced the Titans to just 1 man. Prashant Rai was tackled in the resulting raid as the home team suffered the first all out of the match as the scoreline read 15-20 in favour of the team in blue.
The Warriors extended their lead to 8 points with 3 minutes left on the clock. At this stage, all the home team could hope for was a defeat by 7 points or less as that would ensure they would win 1 point. With both the teams separated by just 7 points, the visitors tackled Meraj Sheykh in the buzzer raid to deny the Titans even that joy as they completed a dominant win.
FT: Telugu Titans 17-25 Bengal Warriors
