Vishakhapatnam: Telugu Titans scored their second successive win in the Season 3 of the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi league tie when they outclassed Dabang Delhi 45-34 with standout performances from star raiders Rahul Chaudhari and the not so heralded Rohit Baliyan in attack. Rahul pocketed 11 points while Rohit had 10 to his credit.
Kashiling Adake and Surjit Singh also had high scores of 12 and 10 respectively in a fast and furious game that entertained the enthusiastic crowd at the Rajeev Gandhi Indoor Stadium. The inability of the Dabang Delhi defence to rise to the occasion proved to be the most notable difference between the two sides.
At the midway stage Titans led 26-10 by inflicting two all outs against their rivals. The first came in very early in the 3rd minute to propel the winners 12-5. The momentum was provided by Rohit Balian with a super raid worth three points. Titans’ consistent performer Sukesh Hegde and Rahul got into the scoring act too. The latter’s score of nine points swelled his team’s tally to 26-10 on the stroke of the interval. The match was won and lost at that stage itself.
Dabang’s Ravinder Pahal, last season’s top defender fighting a bout of flu was a pale shadow of himself. He kept committing silly errors and yet his coach Balwan Singh Dahiya persisted with him. A substitution might have helped seeing the way Kashiling and Surjeet were playing aggressively to bridge the gap. That the losers scored 24 points to Titans’ 19 in the second half proves the fight put up by Dabang duo.
Dabang even had their rivals all-out in the 32nd minute which narrowed the gapdown to 36-27. Even then the Titans’ coach Ramesh Bhendigiri courageously withdrew ace Rahul who had been penalized with a yellow card for showing dissent. His replacement Prashant Rai managed to garner three points and with Rohit using his reach to gain bonus points Titans sealed a well-deserved win.
Titans now lead the table with 8 points with two wins and a win on the today against Bengal Warriors should strengthen their position. Dabang will move to Bengaluru with a blank slate. They will have to go to the drawing board to devise a plan to plug the leaks in their defence which will be otherwise be exploited to the maximum by others.
