As the Yoddha headed to Mumbai, U Mumba upset UP Yoddha at their home – the NSCI Dome on Tuesday. Though our defenders put up an impressive show, the hosts put up a dominant victory with a final scoreline of 41-24.
Prashanth’s successful first raid got us off the mark with a bonus. Though Nitesh was soon out, the defenders quickly got into action, helping Yoddha to stay afloat. Their brilliant effort earned us three Super Tackles with eight minutes to go in the first half. Sachin Kumar bettered himself furthermore, eventually flourishing as an all-rounder with balanced number of raid and tackle points.
Though Narender completed his High 5, Sachin was out soon and U Mumba inflicted an All-Out to finally take the lead by a solitary point. This gave them a 15-14 scoreline at the end of first half, with all players from both the teams on the mat.
Nitesh, who looked out of touch in the first half, made a comeback with his signature ankle hold to get Darshan Kadian out. However, getting in the lead became more and more difficult for us. Shrikant Jadhav pulled off a 2-point-raid, while some more work by our defenders kept our scorecard ticking.
With just over 5 minutes remaining in the match, Darshan Kadian’s 6-point raid took U Mumba to an unassailable lead. The Mumbai defenders proved to be too strong for our raiders and our raiders had a tough time scouting for points.
We tried our best but could not escape a 41-24 defeat to the hosts. Narender was our best defender, with a High 5, while Shrikant was the most successful raider with 4 points.