Ajay Thakur and Manjeet Chhillar's stellar performance enabled Bengaluru Bulls rout Bengal Warriors 33-22 in a Star Sports Pro Kabaddi encounter at the Gachibowli Stadium on Thursday.
The team from the 'Garden City' consolidated their third spot by taking their tally to 30 points from eight matches.
For the Warriors, it was a second big defeat after their 24 points loss to the hosts Telugu Titans yesterday. They have 11 points in nine outings and stay in the seventh spot.
After a slow start the teams warmed up with Mahendra Rajput putting his team up with a hand touch on veteran Dhramaraj Cherlathan, the rival left corner.
It was a neck to neck fight till the 16th minute when the scores stood at 9-all. For the Bulls, it was Thakur, who came up with seven raid points and one from a catch before he fell in a super raid to Nilesh Shinde and Mahendra.
The Warriors scored through Mahendra and Jang Kun Lee, who also had one point in defence. Deepak Kumar manning the left corner too made his presence felt.
But with Bengaluru getting in their stride and Manjeet showing a clean pair of heels to the last two Bengal defenders the inevitable happened. The all out came for Bengal and their rivals were up 14-9. Even then the half-time situation wasn't that alarming for the losers at 10-16.
The complexion of the match changed thereafter as the raiding points for the Warriors dried up. With Ajay out on the bench after scoring a bonus it was corner man Joginder Narwal who captured two victims to help Bengaluru go further ahead. Despite getting Manjeet Chhillar in a super tackle the Warriors failed to avoid another wash-out.
A fine tackle from Somvir Shekhar to put out substitute Vineet Sharma and a Manjeet raid that rang the all-out. At 28-17 and less than five minutes left the contest was over. The introduction of Sunil Jaipal and Vineet Sharma to shore up the attack failed totally. Bengal collapsed as a team and their chances of making the play-offs look extremely remote.
