New Delhi: Defending champions U Mumba expectedly beat Bengaluru Bulls 39-18 to register their eighth win in the Season 3 Star Sports Pro Kabaddi. At the Thyagaraj Sports Complex the winners went up to the second spot with 40 points and with four matches in hand are almost there in the final four, barring a mishap.

U Mumba led 16-5 at half-time by inflicting an all-out in the 9th minute. They dismissed their rivals thrice in the match. It is Bengaluru Bulls’ tenth loss in twelve games. It was a dream game for the champions as practically everybody contributed to the win including the substitutes.

It was Rishank Devadiga (7 points), Captain Anup Kumar (6 points) and Rakesh Kumar (5 points) who led the assault with solid backup from the defense where the Iranian Fazel Atrachali is growing in stature with each match. And when you have Mohit Chhillar, Vishal Mane the best in the business you cannot hope to pose any problems to the U Mumba defense. However, Fazel took a hit by earning a yellow card for a vicious tackle on a rival raider.

That Surjeet Narwal the rival skipper and main raider went without a point and was off the court for more time than he was on it shows the ruthless approach of U Mumba. Pawan Kumar put up some show with four raiding and one tackle point for Bengaluru Bulls.

U Mumba did not give their opponents any respite in the second session by getting them all-out in the 23rd minute for the second time with Rakesh Kumar tagging two defenders. The score was 22-6 at that time. The third all-out followed in the 30th minute as Fazel Atrachali and Rakesh Kumar got involved in trapping the rival raiders. Rishank Devadiga and Rakesh Kumar had a field day but the best moment for U Mumba came when Anup Kumar came up with a super-raid, the only one of the match in the 26th minute. He tagged Ashish Sangwan, Preetam Chhillar and Hardeep Duhan.

As the writing on the wall for Bengaluru Bulls became clear it was time for Coach Bhaskaran Edachery to give Bhupender Singh, Pawan Kumar and K. Prapanjan an opportunity to get the feel of the ground and all of them got on the scorers list.