Kolkata: Captain Rahul Chaudhari’s decisive raid in the last minute of the match helped Telugu Titans edge hosts Bengal Warriors 32-30 in a heart stopping thriller. That was the only thing of note Rahul did in the match while his team remained afloat due to the superb efforts of Deepak Niwas Hudda.
The lanky Haryanvi tallied 11 raid points and gave his team a further bonus of 4 tackle points. He was ably aided by the strong and talented Prashant Rai who is turning out to be a revelation for the Titans, who have registered their third consecutive win in Season 2 of Star Sports Pro Kabaddi. One slip and the Warriors were left twiddling their thumbs today.
Bengal made a slow start but managed to inflict an all-out against their rivals at 10-6 by the 12th minute. Dinesh scored two raid points for his side but the real action came from Bajirao Hodage as he dashed out Prashant and Rahul followed by Sachin Khambe who managed to push Meraj Sheykh out.
Slowly and surely the Warriors went up 16-10 despite Deepak scoring a 2 point raid and snatching a bonus. Jan Kun Lee, the ever improving Korean, brought the curtain down in this half with a superb three-pointer to send the home crowd up into seventh heaven.
The neck to neck tussle continued with Deepak being unrelenting and Rahul somehow opening his account in the 27th minute by getting Nilesh Shinde. Jan in the meantime had fallen twice during a do or die raid. The loss was made up by Sunil Jaipal with a 4 pointer that sent his team up to 23-18. Titans responded through Prashant who showed some fine skills especially the backward toe-touch that got the experienced Nilesh by surprise.
Jan got a couple of bonus points but at the other end Titans kept on attacking. Deepak and Prashant succeeded in inflicting a ‘lona’, to bring their side closer 25-26. Titans pushed Dinesh to go ahead at 27-26 but Jan came up with yet another sizzler of a raid netting three victims including Rahul and Sukesh Hegde who did hardly anything notable.
At 30-27 the Warriors had the match under control. Two empty raids by Dinesh who had faded out by that time and Jan trapped during a do or die put pressure on them. It was 30-29, another empty by Dinesh and Rahul capitalize at the opportune time as the rivals went for him unnecessarily. Came the last raid and Sunil Jaipal had no option but to go for broke as the battle was already last. The home side will take on U Mumba tomorrow but they will have to come out with a revised strategy.
The Warriors will have to take a call on Dinesh and his abilities and maybe try and utilize the tall Mahendra Rajput who snatched a victory for them from Jaipur.
