U Mumba Abhishek Singh during a successful raid against Jaipur Pink Panthers in PKL 8
Young raider V Ajith Kumar and Abhishek Singh called the shots in style as U Mumba steamrollered past Jaipur Pink Panthers 37-28 in a Pro Kabaddi League match here on Thursday.
While Kumar had 11 points from 14 raids, Singh managed 10 points from 22 raids as U Mumba recorded their second win of the season. For Jaipur Pink Panthers, Arjun Deshwal was the only shining star as he picked up 14 points but sadly lacked support from his teammates.
In another match, Pawan Sehrawat was the toast of the night as he scored 22 points (19 raid points and 3 tackle points) to help Bengaluru Bulls get the better of Haryana Steelers 42-28.
Pawan's special liking towards Haryana Steelers was visible as he looked sharp in his raids. Primarily a right-side raider, Pawan worked hard on raiding from both sides and put all his learnings to use as he caught Haryana Steelers off guard.
The gulf of difference in talent was evident as Pawan was exceptional on the night. Vikash Kandola was the next best raider with just seven points.
Incidentally, Pawan scored 39 points against Haryana Steelers in the last season.
In the other game, U Mumba won the toss and invited Jaipur Pink Panthers to make the first raid. Both the teams started on a cautious note as neither of them tried to take a strong hold of the match in the initial raids.
Jaipur Pink Panthers took a slender lead at 2-1 when Abhishek Singh perished in a do-or-die raid. The Jaipur team continued to hold the lead at 5-4 when Deepak Hooda was tackled but Sultan Fazel Atrachali had to go out of bounds in the melee.
U Mumba then turned the tables with a super raid when Ajith Kumar escaped a double thigh hold as they snatched the lead at 7-5.
From then, the Mumbai team never looked back. Ajith Kumar hit a purple patch and picked up raid points at will while he got excellent support from Abhishek Singh.
Ajith Kumar hardly put a foot wrong. He was agile, his strategy was spot on and he escaped the defenders' clutches with ease. The raider knew his moves to perfection and made sure the Jaipur Pink Panthers' defence had no answers to his humongous raids.
U Mumba inflicted the first all out of the match when Abhishek cornered both the Pink Panthers' defenders as they stretched their lead to 12-7.
The Jaipur Pink Panthers tried every trick in the book to try and come back into the match but could not.
Abhishek took an extraordinary last raid of the first half when he jumped, ran and dodged a thigh hold from Dharmaraj Cheralathan and took another defender on his way to help U Mumba take a healthy 21-12 lead at halftime.
U Mumba continued to be the better team after the restart and inflicted a second all out on Jaipur Pink Panthers at 25-13 when Deepak Hooda couldn't escape a thigh hold from Rinku and Fazel Atrachali's clutches.
Arjun Deshwal soon brought up his Super 10 when he got a running hand touch on Moshen Maghsoudlou but Jaipur Pink Panthers were off the mark by a mile.
U Mumba continued to call the shots and Ajith got his Super 10 when he sent veteran Dharmaraj, and the Mumbai team led by 28-16.
Fazel then joined the fun when he sent Deepak Hooda out of the mat with a ruthless thigh hold as his team gave nothing away to their opponents.
Meanwhile, Arjun was left to do everything on his own and tried to reduce the arrears with every passing raid but lacked support from all corners.
