Pro Kabaddi: Panthers overpower Warriors in epic battle

Vizag: With the first match out of the way and Vizag having gotten their first real taste of Kabaddi action, it was now time for the second match of the night. The Bengaluru Bulls had squandered their chance of leapfrogging Jaipur Pink Panthers into second place. A costly slipup for the Bulls, put the Panthers in prime position to narrowing the gap at the top. A win on the night would bring them within 2 points and well within sniffing distance of break out leaders U Mumba. The Bengal Warriors however haven't looked the same team away from home, a porous defence and an over reliance on Jang Kun Lee has often spelled the down fall of this team.


The match began in ernest with both teams trading blows. It was however the Panthers that provided the first real highlight of the match when, stand-in skipper Prashant Chavan and a heavily bandaged up Rohit Rana combined wonderfully well to stop the marauding Jang Kun Lee dead in his tracks. The highlights just kept coming from the Pink half of the court, this time it was the light footed Jasvir Singh, who on a single raid tagged out 4 members of Bengal's anti and with it ended the Bengal charge in the first half. Jaipur had put up their first LONA points on the night shortly afterward when they took down a lone Sunil Narwal and moved into a 24-10 lead by the end of the 14th minute.


The greatest bane in this Bengal side has been the lack of being able to pull a match back from the jaws of defeat, no easy task, but in this sport particularly a necessity which either makes or breaks a team's fortune. The body language of the player's changes immediately when they find themselves in a daunting situation, the heads drop and soon the match is lost. Bengal did well to claw back a few points, but by the end of the half they had quite the mountain to climb, at the end of the half the score read 26-16 in favour of Jaipur.


The second half kicked off in spectacular fashion for the Bengal Warriors. Coach Raj Narain Sharma rallied his troop, and the results were showing immediately. They had clawed themselves to within 6 points of the Panthers, but this wave of revival soon went flat, like a low tide pulling back toward the sea the Warriors were in the deep end yet again. Despite their hard work through the initial phase of the second half, they once again found themselves fighting to stay afloat. By the end of the match the disappointment within the ranks of the Bengal Warriors was obvious, they really had worked themselves into a rut, cementing their 7th loss of the season. The match ended in favour of Jaipur, 41-33. Who have now won 7 matches on the trot, marching their way toward that precious play-off birth.