AHMEDABAD: Bengal Warriors dominated most of the game, but the Bengaluru Bulls fought in the final minutes of the match to make it a close contest. However, the Warriors emerged victorious with the scoreline reading 32-30 at the EKA Arena by TransStadia on Sunday. Maninder Singh’s 11 points in his first start for the season set the tone for the Warriors in the game.
Maninder kicked off proceedings with the first raid of the evening, one which yielded a bonus point as well as a touch point to put Bengal on the board. In what was billed as the battle of the big raiders, he had stamped his mark.
At the other end though Bharat was tackled on his very first raid, an ominous sign of the way things would go for him through the game. It took Bengaluru Bulls over four minutes of the game, and multiple raids before they even got on the board, via a do-or-die raid from Aditya Shinde.
The Warriors kept tapping away at regular intervals to keep the Bulls at arm’s length, but one super raid from Neeraj Narwal ripped up the script and turned it into a close encounter, one which the Warriors led 14-11 at half-time.
The Warriors extended their lead a few minutes into the second half, Maninder Singh effecting an all out to put them 8 points clear at 23-15.
However, Bengaluru slowly inched their way back into the contest thereafter. With six minutes to go, they got an all out of their own, to reduce the margin to two and with three minutes left to play, the teams were locked at 28 apiece.