21 July,2015 08:30 AM IST | | Amit Kamath
U Mumba completed a hat-trick of wins after beating Patna Pirates 25-20 in an Pro Kabaddi League-2 match at Worli's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in the National Sports Club of India yesterday
A Patna Pirates raider (centre) tries to break U Mumba's defence during their Pro Kabaddi match yesterday
U Mumba completed a hat-trick of wins after beating Patna Pirates 25-20 in an Pro Kabaddi League-2 match at Worli's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in the National Sports Club of India yesterday.
A Patna Pirates raider (centre) tries to break U Mumba's defence during their Pro Kabaddi match yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble
With their wins over Patna, Bengaluru Bulls and Jaipur Pink Panthers, the Mumbai franchise are now in the top position in the PKL-2 standings. The key to the Mumbai outfit's win yesterday was keeping Patna Pirates' star raider, India skipper Rakesh Kumar, under check throughout the match.
In fact, Rakesh could not score even a single point in the entire match from his 10 raids - he had nine empty raids and one unsuccessful raid. So atypical was Rakesh's performance that he barely had any raids in the second half.
On the other end of the mat, Rakesh's India teammate Anup Kumar played with caution but earned seven points to take his side to their third win in three days.
Anup had a success percentage of just 22 per cent with 14 of his 18 raids being empty raids. With both sets of raiders cautious throughout the match, Mumbai went into half-time with a 17-10 lead.
In the second half, Mumbai maintained their slender advantage to snatch a narrow victory. A disconsolate Rakesh pinned all the blame for the defeat on himself.
In the day's earlier match, Telugu Titans beat Puneri Paltan 45-24.
