Hyderabad had wrapped up the tie even before world no. 9 Srikanth's battle against world No 5 Srikanth by winning two out of the first three matches, but still it was a very creditable win by the Indian, who has never beaten the Malaysian great in four encounters at the international level.
The Hunters, in fact, rallied from an early loss to overcome the Hot Guns at the NSCI Sardar Vallabhai Patel indoor stadium here today.
However, the Hunters gamble of making the men's doubles clash as their trump match paid rich dividends as the scratch combine of Carsten Mogensen of Denmark and Indonesian Markis Kido fought back from a game down to get the better of Bengaluru's Malaysian pair of Hoon Thien How and Kim Wah Lim 13-15 15-9 15-14.
The 2-1 advantage that Hyderabad secured made it imperative that Bengaluru's Sameer Verma clinch his men's singles trump match against higher-ranked rival Parupalli Kashyap but it was not to be as the latter won 15-14 15-13 to provide Hunters with a winning 3-0 points lead.
Also Read
Bengaluru's Ashwini Ponnappa and lanky Danish partner Joachim Fischer Nielsen defeated her regular women's doubles partner Jwala Gutta and Kido 15-13 15-13 to make the points score 3-1.
Finally, it was left to Srikanth to salvage some pride and he did it in great style by outsmarting Lee 15-12 6-15 15-7.
"I'm very happy to beat Lee. It's always great to beat someone who is that good," said Srikanth, who punched the court in glee after smashing his way to a memorable win in the last game in which he cantered home with a series of telling smashes after taking an early 7-2 lead.