Riding on home support and an aggressive strategy in the second half, U Mumba won the Maharashtra Derby by beating Puneri Paltan 33-23 in the opening Mumbai leg game of the Pro Kabaddi League Season-7 at the National Sports Club of India in Worli on Saturday.

Abhishek Singh, Rohit Baliyan and Arjun Deshwal were the stars for U Mumba. It was an open game initially, but the Pune side twice succeeded in getting Mumba's South Korean raider Dong Geon Lee. However, Paltan's Manjeet failed in a do-or-die raid and U Mumba leveled the score 4-4. Then, Mumba's star raider Abhishek's (five points in the game) brilliant raid earned a point which helped bring back Lee in the game. Though Lee failed to play to potential, Abhishek succeeded in every raid and got his team the much-needed points.