Puneri Paltan crush U Mumba in PKL

Puneri Paltan hammered former champions U Mumba 33-21 in the second match of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), which got underway at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium here on Friday.

The Pune outfit sparkled from the start and at the half-time took a 17-10 lead. Sandeep Narwal's impressive first-half show was one of the prime reasons for Pune's position of strength.

In total, Narwal earned six points for his team, while captain Deepak Hooda contributed five points with his raids.

Anup Kumar came up with eight points for Mumba and all-rounder Kuldeep Singh gave four points.

U Mumba lacked the discipline from the beginning and their defence, especially didn't look good, with some half-hearted attempts at blocking the raids, while Puneri Paltan started the match with great intensity to lead 6-1 after seven minutes and reduced Mumba to just two players.

Mumba struggled to come to terms in the early part of the match but Anup Kumar scored two points as they trailed 3-7 after nine minutes. The Mumbai team got depleted early and was all out at the 10th-minute mark. Post this, Pune took an 11-4 lead which increased to 18-11 at half-time.

Defenders Dharmaraj Cheralathan (four points) and Ravi Kumar too were outstanding for Pune as they never allowed Mumba to make a comeback into the game. In total, Pune got 15 tackle points, as compared to seven for Mumbai.

They didn't allow the space for the Mumba raiders. Kashling Adake flattered to deceive with one point, while Shabeer Bapu collected only two points from 12 raids. Hadi Oshtorak too came a cropper, contributing only one point.

--IANS

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