Pro Kabaddi 2019: Bengaluru Bulls begin home leg with loss to Gujarat Fortunegiants; dominant U Mumba blank Jaipur Pink Panthers

Bengaluru: Gujarat Fortunegiants produced a composed performance to outfox defending champions Bengaluru Bulls 32-23 in a Pro Kabaddi League match at Bengaluru on Saturday. Sachin’s five raid points and a collective effort from the team’s defence helped Gujarat beat the home side in a tight encounter that had been billed as the repeat of Season 6 final. Importantly for Gujarat, the result catapulted them to sixth in the table. [caption id=“attachment_7262331” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Gujarat Fortunegiants’ defence played a big role in the team’s victory over Bengaluru Bulls. Image courtesy: Pro Kabaddi[/caption] In another match, U Mumba thrashed arch-rivals Jaipur Pink Panthers 47-21 in a strong defensive performance at the SreeKanteerava Stadium. An all-round performance from U Mumba, championed by raider Abhishek Singh’s Super 10 (with 13 raid points), secured a crucial win for the Mumbai outfit in Pro Kabaddi League’s oldest rivalry. The win allowed Mumbai to climb to fifth in the points table while the Pink Panthers remained third. Earlier, Sachin was back in the line-up for the Fortunegiants and it was Gujarat who started the match on the front foot. Gujarat came into the match with seven losses in eight matches but the team showed no signs of their bad form. Pawan Sehrawat was having an unusually quiet game for the Bulls but he worked well with Rohit Kumar to keep pace with the Gujarat side in the first half. But a miscalculation from the Bengaluru defence, which saw both Mohit Sehrawat and Amit Sheoran go out of bounds, handed over the momentum to the Fortunegiants who piled on the pressure to force an All-Out on the home team in the 14th minute of the half and move to a four-point lead. The Gujarat defence, especially Parvesh Bhainswal and Sumit Kumar, looked sharp in the first half that ended 18-12 with Gujarat in the lead. The second half saw the match played on the defence as both sets of raiders struggled to fetch points. Sumit Kumar was once again in the thick of things for the Fortunegiants, pouncing on every opportunity to tackle Sehrawat. Bengaluru’s Saurabh Nandal was having a stupendous game in their defence too, rushing to a High 5 (awarded to defenders with 5 tackle points or more) in the mid-stages of the second half to set up an enticing final five minutes of the game. The Bulls kept matching Gujarat in all departments but couldn’t find a wat to reduce Fortunegiants’ lead. The home side were playing on the do-or-die situations but Sachin pulled out a two-point raid with two minutes remaining to increase the lead to five points. Another blunder in Bulls’ planning led to an All-Out in the final move of the match which meant Bengaluru squandered a chance to walk away with one point.