Down to ten men for the entire second half, a struggling Dabang Mumbai secured their first victory in the Hockey India league with a thrilling 7-5 win over table toppers and defending champions Ranchi Rays here on Wednesday.
Making light of the red card shown to their forward Yousuf Affan at the fag end of the second quarter, Mumbai produced top-drawer stuff to stun Ranchi with a spirited display that stopped the visitors' four-game winning streak.
led brilliantly by Australian captain and schemer Matthew Swann, Mumbai scored three field goals through Swann, Nilakanta Sharma and Florian Fuchs after Diwakar Ram gave them an early lead with a penalty corner conversion.
The victory, their first in five games, took Mumbai's tally to 9, still in last position in the six-team table, while Ranchi secured one point for not losing by more than two goals and remained on top with 22 points.
Mumbai dominated and took a 1-0 lead through a penalty corner strike by former India player Diwakar Ram.
In the second quarter, Ranchi equalised off their first penalty corner award which was converted by captain Jackson in the 18th minute.
Mumbai, however, surged in front again through an opportunistic field strike by captain Swann. But Mumbai suffered a big blow when Affan was sent off with a red card for deliberately striking a rival defender with a stick just before the end of the first half. Mumbai allowed Ranchi to equalise the score with a field goal by Sarvanjit Singh in the 38th minute of play and then went behind through another penalty corner strike by Jackson.
The hosts made amends in the very next minute and went ahead 5-4through Nilakanta Sharma. Then German striker Fuchs scored a fabulous field goal to make it 7-4 lead with ten minutes left.