With less than a week to go for the Finale of the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi League, the teams are gearing up and making every move count. After traveling to seven cities, the excitement comes to "namma" Bengaluru, the final city of the league stage. Taking Kabaddi to pinnacles of glory and glamour, the tournament has reached a distinguished stand as the most watched non-cricket sport on Indian television. The stage is all set for high decibel action as the tournament now enters the 'do or die' stage. At this juncture, the Jaipur Pink Panthers being the only team to have qualified for the semis, the League table poses an exciting contest between U Mumba, Patna Pirates, Telugu Titans, Bengaluru Bulls and Dabang Delhi. Despite a valiant show, and many heart breakingly close games, Puneri Paltan and Bengal Warriers do not have sufficient points or games remaining to break through to the top 4 spots. While U Mumba work on a stronger defence and look beyond Anup Kumar and Pawan Kumar to score raid-points, Patna's Sandeep Narwal would have to step up and fill Rakesh Kumar and Ravi Dalal's shoes in case the charismatic captain and his chief raider are unable to recover from a ligament injury. The chance for Telugu Titans to make it to the final four looks much more plausible now, with the threatening triad of Rahul Chaudhari, Sukesh Hegde and Deepak Niwas Hooda, backed by the strong defence duo of Rajaguru Subramanian and D Gopu. Falling behind by a handful of points, the Bengaluru Bulls are not only fully-charged but confident that support from their home fans at the Kanteerava Stadium will propel them to the final four. Dabang Delhi, however, would have to pull a rabbit out of their hat if they were to make the cut. Failing to capitalize on sizable leads and crumbling in the second half have cost this team dearly throughout the tournament. Their only hope now is to buckle up and depend on other teams to falter, 5 teams, 9 matches to go, the road to the Semis in Mumbai promises to be an enthralling journey. The League has also witnessed some the rise of the Kings of Raids and World-Class Defenders. Though as many as five raiders have crossed the 100-raid points mark, the contest for the crown remains a closely fought battle between Titans' - star Rahul Chaudhari and the impressive U Mumba Captain, Anup Kumar, with 138 and 121 points respectively. With both teams having two league-stage matches still to go, the fiery fights will go down to the final few minutes of their last matches. In the defenders corner, it is a far closer affair. With the top three- Jasmer Singh of Delhi, Surender Nada of Bengal and Jaipur Pink Panthers' Rohit Rana separated by two points each and the rest catching up at a steady pace, making predictions will be a futile effort. Commenting on the levels of excitement for the last leg of the league, Charu Sharma, Managing Director, Mashal Sports concludued, "When we began, we knew that the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi League would be an amazing journey,but the warmth and support with which the tournament has been received across all the venues has been overwhelming. The excitement till now is just a preview of what is in store now. The element of unpredictability, the anxiety leading to matches and the heart-stopping nail-biters, the forthcoming matches have it all. We are just as impatient as all the spectators are and are confident that the next few matches will have everyone hooked on Kabaddi" The league has already received 288 million viewers for the first 15 days, making Star Sports Pro Kabaddi the most watched live sporting, event behind only after Cricket. Mr. Uday Shankar, STAR INDIA, CEO commented on this milestone "Kabaddi is set to become one of the biggest sports in India very soon. We are overwhelmed that sports fans across India have given a resounding endorsement to the faith that Star Sports has placed in the power of Kabaddi. This is a tribute to the efforts of Mashal Sports, the All India Kabaddi Federation, and the franchise teams without which this would not have been possible."
Source: Indiansportsnews.com
