Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: Five talking points from Day 3 of PKL 5

The third day of the Pro Kabaddi League saw the debut of one new franchise, Haryana Steelers against the champions from the second season, U Mumba. The Sunday showdown began with a bang, with a close encounter in the first match, against two sides which looked quite evenly place, but U Mumba claiming the glory at the fag end.

The second encounter of the day featured the home team, Telugu Titans take the battle across to the Bengaluru Bulls.

#1: U Mumba early loss of review cause them headaches later

An animated Anup Kumar on the mat in the match against the Steelers.

Anup Kumar is a key tactician and is not often that he uses the review and it is deemed as unsuccessful by the TV umpire. Well, this rare feat transpired very early into U Mumba's match against the Haryana Steelers. Shabeer Bapu when on a raid, with his swift directional change left Surender Nada off-balanced on the left corner causing him to fall down quite next to the side line. Then he went on to attempt a bonus point on the opposite end which was manned by Mohit Chhillar however, not a single point was given by the umpires on the mat.

Both the facts were reviewed by Anup, possibly displaying faith in Shabeer's confidence, but replays from different angles made it evident that neither was Nada self-out nor had Shabeer clinched a bonus point. Thus, a lapse of judgement on the captain's part saw U Mumba lose their all-important review early on in the match.

He possibly regretted the same in the second half when Anup himself wanted to challenge a touch point given to Steelers' Vikas Kandola and had to make his way to the bench.

#2 Haryana Steelers lead the way at half time, inflict an all-out in the last minute

The Steelers enforce a strong tackle on U Mumba's Shabeer Bapu.

For the major part of the first half, in fact, till the 18th minute, the two teams were separated on the scoreboard just by one point, in favour of Haryana.

U Mumba seemed to have come in all readiness to stage a comeback, with Anup getting the better of Surender Nada on a couple of occasions while Kashiling Adake and Shabeer Bapu also making considerable contributions to the raid tally.

On the other shore, Surjeet and Wazir led the mantle, while young gun Vikas Kandola also stood out with his performance on do-or-die raids, while the defence gave glimpses of their strength.

However, in the last 90 seconds, the proceedings took a turn for the negative for U Mumba, when the players on court started depleting in heaps and soon there was an all-out inflicted by Haryana in the very last minute to gain a convincing lead of four points with a scoreline of 11-15.

#3 Anup Kumar leads the way for a U Mumba comeback

Anup Kumar and Kashiling Adake led the way for Mumbai

Kashiling and Anup Kumar staged a massive clean up act with consecutive rampant raids with the formers' Super Raid particularly, to put the team in the lead against the Steelers in the 29th minute by inflicting the all-out.

From that point onwards, the raiding and defence showcased some credibility by bagging points riding on the efforts of Suresh Kumar, Kashiling, Anup and Surinder Singh particularly to maintain the small lead of two points throughout the second half which was rarely extended to three or four.

The nerves just surfaced, in the very last minute, when Wazir Singh came in to raid and claimed two points thus effectively making the scoreline rest at 29-28. But it is moments like these when the acumen of Anup Kumar comes into play, and he the smart Captain strategically made a long empty raid till the time on the clock ran out and the referee blew the whistle, thus ensuring that U Mumba register their first win of the season even though it is just by a single point.

#4 Rahul Chaudhari reaches the 500 raid points milestone

Rahul Chaudhari jumps past the Bengaluru defence.

In the last match of the Telugu Titans, Rahul was denied his personal milestone by the strong defence of the Patna Pirates leaving him just one short of the 500 mark.

But he made up for the same, by clinching the all-important point on just his second raid in the match against Bengaluru Bulls, to etch his name in the record books of the Pro Kabaddi League.

In fact, he is ahead on the leaderboard by such a huge margin that he is sort of out of reach for the other raiders in the ranks, with Anup Kumar, the second person on the tally having 382 raid points to his credit.

However, he was not at his very best, failing to lead the attack for his side, managing to just get four raid points in the entire match.

#5 The young Bengaluru side hand the Titans' their second loss at home

The Bengaluru Bulls led by Rohit Kumar managed to outclass the Titans in their den.

The Bulls from Bengaluru are the youngest team in the league and well, they showcased their vigour and exuberance in some good fashion on the mat. The raiders, viz. skipper Rohit Kumar and Ajay ensured that the scoreboard kept ticking in their favour while the defence spearheaded by Ravinder Pahal was able to change its gears according to the incoming raider and effectively execute tackles.

The away team led 15-10 at half time and from there on gradually took the game away from the Titans, relegating the star players in the likes of Rahul and Rohit Rana to the bench time and again and enforcing a second all-out to seal the deal. Rohit Kumar earned himself a Super 10 while the team went on to win the clash with a scoreline of 21-31.