Mumbai Meteors registered their first win of the RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 Season 2 by getting better of Chennai Blitz in straight sets (15-14, 15-6, 15-11, 15-12, 15-9) at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday, February 10.
For what it’s worth, the only positive Chennai had on the night was their winning start, to say the very least. After having opened the scoring with a block, the team went on to establish a 6-4 lead in the first set which is exactly when things started to go downhill.
Following a close back-and-forth of points, Mumbai Meteors managed to outscore Chennai Blitz by a solitary point in the first set. Once the teams got back to the court, the story was all about Mumbai and their absolute domination.
Having said that, let’s take a look at what defined Mumbai Meteors’ blistering win over Chennai Blitz.
Teamwork makes the dream work
John C. Maxwell wrote in his book that ‘Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team’. Fortunately for Mumbai, Karthik A’s big dream was duly backed by his teammates on Friday.
Interestingly enough, as many as five Mumbai players tallied more than five points as compared to Chennai’s one. This included Anu James, Hardeep Singh, Brandon Greenway, Karthik A and Shameemudheen A.
Attack, attack, attack
The fact that Mumbai had two players who tallied more than 10 attacking points deserves a special mention. While the first set was indeed competitive, Mumbai’s plan from the second set onward was to attack, attack and attack.
This can be verified by the fact that they had cruised into an 11-2 lead in the second period thanks to back-to-back spikes from Anu James and Co. The trend continued right until the end and there was little that Chennai Blitz could do about it.
Chennai’s defensive woes
While one has to praise Mumbai’s approach on the night, it’s imperative that we look at the other side of the coin, which is Chennai’s defence which had a rough outing. In fact, the Naveen Raja Jacob-led side conceded a whopping 45 points from Mumbai’s attack as compared to scoring just 29. While they did make one more block (7) than Mumbai’s (6), that, unfortunately, was the only mere positive for the side.