The U.P. Yoddha pulled off an upset against the Bengaluru Bulls as they won 42-27 in the 44th match of the Pro Kabaddi League Season 8 at the Sheraton Grand Convention Centre in Bengaluru on Sunday.
Before the encounter, the Bengaluru Bulls had lost just a solitary match while the U.P. Yoddhas had won just one encounter but the PKL had a surprise in store for all the spectators.
Bengaluru Bulls led by Pawan Kumar Sehrawat started off on a positive note in the first raid. They got a 3-1 lead but the Yoddhas restricted them from running away with the lead in the early minutes.
The match was evenly poised till the 5th minute with the scores tied at 6-6. The Bulls ran away with the early lead at 12-7. However, the Yoddha started their domination from that point and didn’t look back. From the 15th minute till the end of the first half, the Yoddha scored 12 points while the Bulls scored just a couple of points.
U.P. Yoddha and Bengaluru Bulls had a huge difference in their defensive unit. The Yoddha scored 22 tackle points while the Bulls could muster only 7 tackle points. The Nitesh Kumar-led franchise completed 6 super tackles which were their major strength on this night.
Pawan Kumar was lackluster with 5 raid points in today’s match
Bharat completed a super raid in the 31st minute to reduce the deficit to just 6 points at 29-23. U.P. Yoddha avoided the all-out with a super tackle on the raider in the following raid. They followed it up with another super tackle on Pawan and extended their lead to 11 points over the red outfit.
The super-sub Bharat scored his 10th raid point in the 36th minute of the game as the Bulls reduced the lead to 10 points. But the match followed the same script as the Yoddha inflicted another super tackle and that was the final nail in the coffin for the franchise.
A 12-point lead with little more than 150 seconds to go in the encounter was too big a lead for the Bulls to overturn. At the final whistle, the Yoddha trounced the table-toppers 42-27.
Bengaluru Bulls will take on Dabang Delhi on Wednesday at 8:30 pm while the Haryana Steelers will lock horns with the U.P. Yoddha on the same day at 7:30 pm.