Bengaluru Bulls snatch exciting win

A successful last second tackle by Manjeet Chillar earned Bengaluru Bulls a dramatic 27-26 victory against Telugu Titans in the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi tournament, here Tuesday and kept the hosts in the reckoning for a semi-final berth in the Pro-Kabaddi League.

With the scores tied at 26-all, Chillar led a tackle on Deepak Hudda to fetch the Bulls one point and with that the victory.

The Titans, who had done extremely well to turn back a 10-17 half-time deficit, finished their league engagements with 42 points, the same as the Bulls who however have a game in hand, against leaders Jaipur Pink Panthers, Wednesday when the round-robin phase concludes.

There was very little separating the two teams. Both had two all outs to their credit, but the Bulls held the edge in tackles with Chillar again being outstanding. Bulls scored 12 each in raids and tackles while Titans had 13 and 10, respectively.

Chillar topped the scoring chart with eight points, five of these from tackles, while he received excellent support from Ajay Thakur (6) and Dharmaraj Cheralathan (5).

For the Titans, it was their top raider Sukesh Hegde (8) who stood out with Rahul Chaudhari and Rajaguru Subramanian contributing five apiece.

The first half clearly belonged to the Bulls who excelled in the tackles that fetched them a majority of the points. Top tackler Manjit Chillar led the Bulls with timely tackles where he used his build and strength to good effect.

On the other hand, the Titans seemed rather subdued and were twice all out much to the delight of the capacity crowd and though they did make a comeback of sorts late in the first-half, it was obvious they were feeling the heat.

It was not surprising then that the Bulls, after a hesitant start, got into the groove to open up a sizeable lead that they built to 17-10 by the break and looked well on top.

On resumption, the Titans were on top in the opening minutes as they picked up eight points on the trot to lead 18-17. From there on, the teams went hand in hand until Bulls messed up a tackle on Sukesh Hegde who took three anti-players with him to give Titans the edge.

Not to be outdone, the Bulls fought back and the scores were level at 24 and then 25. Chillar then led a successful tackle on Hegde to put Bulls ahead 26-25, but Titans again caught up by tackling Ajay Thakur. The Bulls, however, tackled Deepak Hudda in the final seconds to snatch a point and win 27-26.