Pro Kabaddi 2017: Telugu Titans’ defence comes into play as they beat Tamil Thalaivas 33-28

Telugu Titans and Tamil Thalaivas  in action during their Pro Kabaddi league match in Mumbai on Thursday. (Source: PTI)

This far into the season, Telugu Titans have pretty much defined the term ‘one man show.’ Their skipper Rahul Chaudhari has scored Super 10s on five occasions this season. His points have accounted for more than half of what the team scores in match. Despite that, their defence has been so sloppy that they have ended on the losing side on more occassions than any other team this season. But on Thursday, against the Tamil Thalaivas in Mumbai, the Titans were unrecognisable.

Rahul Chaudhari, as always, was expected to become the source of points and inspiration for the Titans. He may have been the latter but in the points front, Chaudhari was pretty much useless. He scored just three points in the entire match. This should have spelt disaster for the Titans but that wasn’t the case. Instead, the hero of the day for the side representing Hyderabad was little known defender Sombir. Standing at the right corner, Sombir harrowed the Thalaiva raiders and accounted for 10 of the 33 points that the Titans ended the match with. “Sombir did what raiders do,” said a beaming Rahul Chaudhari after the match, “He got a Super 10 through tackle points. Players struggle to get High fives and this guy scored twice of that. He is a big part of this win.”

Tamil Thalaivas started the match brightly and took first four touch points available to them. But that really was the only period when they seemed to be in control. Titans first levelled the score at 5-5, all through tackle points. They then kept pulling away and, regardless how hard they tried, the Thalaivas could not catch up with them for the rest of the half. Instead, they were down to just two men at half time. It hence didn’t take long for the Titans to inflict an all out on the Thalaivas in the second half.

They managed to stage a fightback largely due to Ajay Thakur’s raids. With just two minutes to go in the match, Thalaivas brought the deficit down to two points from what was six at one point. This was when Rahul Chaudhari came out with a two point raid. One more tackle point then ensured victory for the Titans.