PKL-5: U Mumba hand Bengal Warriors second defeat on the trot

Kolkata, Sep 7 (IANS) Bengal Warriors succumbed to their second defeat in as many days as former champions U Mumba beat them 37-31 in a second Inter Zone challenge week meet here at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Indoor Stadium on Wednesday.

Skipper Anup Kumar led from the front with eight raid points three tackle points while Kashiling Adake (eight points) and Shrikant Jadhav (eight points) starred for Mumbai too as they recorded their third win on the trot in Zone A.

Bengal on the other hand handed second-placed Patna Pirates (33 points from nine matches) an opportunity to knock them off their perch at the top of the tree in Zone B.

Maninder Singh once again put in a good shift for Bengal (12 raid points) but unfortunately ended up on the losing side.

Courtesy the result, U Mumbai jumped to second spot from third in Zone A with 34 points from 12 matches while Bengal Warriors remained top of Zone B having 42 in their kitty from 13 games.

The first half belonged to Mumbai after Bengal started well to take a 3-1 lead. Riding Anup's brilliant show, the 2015 champions effected an all out on the home team to consolidate their lead from 7-6 to 11-6.

From there on, it was Mumbai all the way as Adake and Shrikant joined Anup to bag points for their side.

At halftime, Mumbai led 15-12.

After the breather, Bengal started brightly like the first essay but Shrikanth poured cold water on their early surge with a three-point raid to open up a six-point lead at 20-14.

There was more misery in store for the hosts as the rampaging visitors handed them a second all out of the game with the score reading 27-16 in their favour with 11 minutes to full time.

Bengal staged a late fightback, defying last man standing skipper Anup's dogged salvo to pull off an all out and close the gap to 28-36 from 25-36.