Kolkata: Manjeet Chillar marshalling his resources in the absence of star raider Ajay Thakur, like a true general guided his side Bengaluru Bulls to a creditable 31-26 win over Patna Pirates. The all-rounder led from the front bearing the brunt of the raiding department and simultaneously negating the threats of rival skipper Rakesh Kumar in defence where he plays as the left cover. This is the second win for the Bulls in three outings.

The start was again cautious by both the sides. It took about 14 minutes for the game to heat up by which time the winners inflicted the first of the two ‘lonas’. Try as much they did but the Patna defence had no answers and trailed 8-16 at the halfway mark. Manjeet by that time had 3 raiding points and had also taken down Rakesh cleanly at least twice with the low front tackle thus exposing the latter’s vulnerability.

The change of ends didn’t make a difference in the loser’s fortunes. They stumbled further to concede another ‘lona’-all out. At 23-10 Bengaluru had got a firm grip on the game. Patna did try to come back with Girish Ernak coming up with a super tackle on the troublesome Rajesh Mondal.

But at this juncture young Pardeep Narwal struck a purple patch for the Bulls. Manjeet too kept on chipping points and at the same time utilised the 30 second raid period to the fullest to consume valuable time. When at 26-13 the tie looked to have been clinched by the winners the burly Sandeep Narwal raised some ripples. He first sent Manjeet out followed by claiming the other Chillar, Preetam. Patna’s move to bring on Gurvinder too had little success. Rakesh, for once too did something of note. He earned a bonus but his final tally of 4 points in 18 raids did little to his already sliding reputation. Manjeet had earlier kicked Sandeep to up the score to 29-24 with three minutes left on the clock. Manjeet helped maintain the margin till the end. The Pirates earned a solitary point to open their tally since they lost by a margin of less than seven points.