Star Raider Vikas was once again the star for the Haryana Steelers as they even picked up an essential 30-27 victory against a struggling U Mumba side in the first Pro Kabaddi League match at the Jawahar Lal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai on Monday.
The closely fought contest saw the Mumbai side match the Steelers till the very end, but the Kandola nine-point game and some uncharacteristic errors from the U Mumba defense finally led to a Haryana victory.
The defense kept a high line, strangling U Mumba opportunities to pick up Bonus Points, thereby forcing them to mistake, while Vikas Kandola picked up the points with his new raids in the other end. His three points Super Raid, 12 minutes into the match, set the tone for the Haryana side who even inflicted an All Out on U Mumba with the three minutes remaining to half of the time.
Consecutive Super Tackles by the Chand Singh and Ravi Kumar, along with some of the few errors in the Mumbai Defence quickly widened the gap to 25-17 in favor of the Haryana with seven minutes to the final whistles though.
Sandeep Narwal’s raid for Mumbai with 6 minutes left on the clock, taking out Dharmaraj Cheralathan and Chand Singh, tilted the balance of the match once again and the subsequent all-out meant the gap was reduced to one point with less than three minutes remaining. But the surge came too late for Mumbai as they succumbed to another defeat.