Delhi succumb to a narrow defeat against Mumbai in their home opener

A neck-and-neck encounter at Delhi’s Thyagaraj Sports Complex ended in U Mumba’s favour as they held their nerve to register a slender 30-28 win against home team Dabang Delhi K.C on Friday. Young Shrikant Jadhav was the game-changer as his Super 10 (11 points in all) and Kashiling Adake’s 7 points stole the match away from Delhi.

Shabeer Bappu came back from injury to start for U Mumba and drew blood in his very first raid of the match, while Abolfazl Maghsodlou picked up Delhi’s first home point. The scoreline ticked on steadily until the 9th minute when Meraj Sheykh pulled off a fantastic super raid to hand U Mumba their first All-Out of the night and take a massive 11-3 lead at the end of the first quarter.

U Mumba, however, were in no mood to retreat and answered strongly. Anup Kumar and Adake registered a couple of two-point raids within minutes to decrease the deficit. Eventually, Delhi fell to their first All-Out of the night in the 17th minute and entered the breather tied 16-16 with Mumbai.

The second half started in a similar fashion. Jadhav was on the brink of pulling off two super raids but Delhi’s defence ensured that he fell short by mere inches. At the end of the third quarter, the scoreline read 22-22 with both the teams cautious of making any silly mistakes.

Abolfazl’s two successful raids in do-or-die situations and a couple of tackles gave Delhi a 2-point lead in the dying minutes. However, Jadhav wasn’t done yet. He pulled off a two-point raid with just 45 seconds remaining on the clock to complete his Super 10 and ensure U Mumba got back to winning ways with a slender 30-28 win against the hosts.

Check out our snapshots from this match here.