Bengal Warriors inched U Mumba 37-35 in a nail-biter match in Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) season seven to set up a grand finale date against Dabang Delhi on 19 October at EKA Arena Stadium in Ahmedabad.
It is to note that this will be a maiden final for both the teams.
Talking about Bengal, they matched the in-form U Mumba side in the early exchanges with Sukesh Hegde scoring valuable 8 points – highest for the side. Meanwhile, Rinku Narwal, in the left corner, also played well for Bengal who were helped by some uncharacteristic errors in the Mumbai defence.
Bengal made the mistake of slowing the pace of the match in the early minutes of the second half that allowed U Mumba to reduce the points gap a little but Hegde produced a stellar 4-point Super Raid in the 8th minute to deflate U Mumba’s confidence.
Despite U Mumba’s best efforts, Bengal kept leading the game. But Ajinkya Kapre had other plans as he produced a 4-point Super Raid with five minutes remaining to change the momentum.
U Mumba went on to clinch an All-Out with three minutes remaining to make it a one-point game but Arjun Deshwal failed in a bonus point attempt in his team’s penultimate raid and Bengal floored the raider in the final move of the game to clinch the match.
Before the match at the same venue, Dabang Delhi had outplayed defending champions Bengaluru Bulls 44-38 to move into the final.
Naveen Kumar was the star for Delhi with his raids (15 points). Apart from Naveen, Chandran Ranjit (9 points) and Anil Kumar (4 points) helped Delhi produce an all-round performance in front of a packed audience.