Maninder, Abhishek pick Super 10s as Bengal Warriors, U Mumba play out a tie

The Triple Panga Saturday night ended in a thrilling 32-all tie between U Mumba and Bengal Warriors in Match 57 of vivo Pro Kabaddi League Season 8 at the Sheraton Grand in Bengaluru. 

It was a Maninder Singh show for Bengal Warriors, who picked up 17 raid points, while U Mumba was kept afloat by Abhishek Singh with 13 raid points. This was Maninder Singh’s eighth super 10 in ten matches while it was Abhishek’s fourth in ten games. 

Both U Mumba and Bengal Warriors progressed neck-to-neck initially. They were three-all in the first five minutes of the match and progressed to five-all in the first eight minutes.

The defending champions’ captain Maninder Singh then took a massive four-point raid, taking Bengal Warriors to a 9-6 lead, which the team extended to 11-6, leaving just Abhishek on U Mumba’s side of the mat. 

Abhishek earned two touch points to bring the scoreboard to 8-11 that was followed by a Super Tackle from Rahul Sethpal and Fazel Atrachali as U Mumba closed in on the gap 10-11. 

U Mumba did well in equalising the scores at 14-all, but a Maninder Singh raid brought about the inevitable U Mumba all-out, taking Bengal Warriors up 18-15. The team retained the lead with a 19-17 scoreline at the end of the first half. 

A couple of raids from V. Ajith Kumar who returned after a brief absence equalised the scores 19-all early in the second half. With Maninder’s raids, Warriors quickly went back to taking a couple of points’ lead. U Mumba stayed in the hunt, with Ajith and Abhishek raiding in tandem.

Bengal Warriors, riding on Maninder’s raids and Abozar Mighani’s tackles, went up 26-22, and extended the lead to 31-26, with an interesting raid from Maninder Singh, that gave both teams two points apiece with less than five minutes to go.

Abhishek’s successful raids combined with tackling Maninder Singh with less than a minute to go pulled U Mumba from 27-32 down to 32-all, ending in a thrilling tie. 

With this result, U Mumba move to the sixth position with 28 points while the Bengal Warriors are placed eighth with 25 points on the league’s points table.

Top performers

Bengal Warriors

Best raider - Maninder Singh (17 Raid Points)

Best defender - Amit Nirwal (3 Tackle Points)

U Mumba

Best raider - Abhishek Singh (13 Raid Points)

Best defender – Fazel Atrachali (3 Tackle Points)