Women's Kabaddi Challenge: Ice Divas trounce Storm Queens to register first win

Skipper Abhilasha Mhatre scored nine raid points as Ice Divas recorded their first win of the Women's Kabaddi Challenge by beating Storm Queen 28-15 on Thursday.

A superb defensive performance laid the foundations for Ice Divas's first victory with a remarkable margin of 13 points.

It was a cautious start for both teams as they were slowly getting their feet in the game and after five minutes the score was 2-2.

Ice Divas skipper Mhatre opened her account in the fifth minute and got rid of Priyanka Negi with a toe touch. Meenal Jadhav followed up with another raid as the Ice Divas led 4-2. Storm Queens scored their two raid points with Negi conducting a successful raid as they trailed 5-7 with five minutes to go in the first half.

Storm Queens forced a super tackle in the 11th minute as Ice Divas led 8-7. Storm Queens scored only three raid points in the first half as Ice Diva went into the break with a slender 10-9 lead. Key raiders Tejaswini Bai and Sakshi Kumari failed to score a single raid point for the Storm Queens in the first half.

Sakshi Kumari opened her account with a do-or-die raid in the third minute of the second half as Storm Queens led 11-10. Ice Divas then made a super tackle count in the same minute to restore a two-point lead and led 13-11. Their defence did a fine job as with just 10 minutes to go Ice Divas had accumulated 10 tackle points.

The first all out of the game came in the 12th minute of second half as Ice Divas led 21-10. With Storm Queens captain Tejaswini Kumar struggling, they faded in the second half as Ice Divas ran out comfortable winners in the end.