Patna Pirates have now lost two of their last three games. After a 28-38 loss against the Jaipur Pink Panthers, they won against the Bengaluru Bulls 38-31. However, in their last Pro Kabaddi League 8 game, the Pirates fell short against now table-toppers Dabang Delhi yet again.
Ram Mehar Singh, Patna’s coach had stated after their game against JPP that the team’s defence got overconfident and hence gave away too many tackle points. The defence made amends in the next game against the Bengaluru Bulls as Sunil alone took nine tackle points.
But against Dabang Delhi, Patna tried 22 tackle points but could only manage nine successful ones. Ram Mehar Singh once again rued this loss to the fact that Pirates were overconfident going into the game as they thought Delhi didn’t have quality raiders with Naveen Kumar not playing.
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Patna weren’t wrong in their thinking as Kumar himself has taken over 120 points in the games he has played. So, it was natural for the Pirates to think that way. The other raiders of Delhi hadn’t performed as well in the absence of Naveen. But Sandeep Narwal, the experienced all-rounder, upped his game for the match and took away seven raid points, which in the end made all the difference.
Ram Mehar Singh not only rued the fact that Patna’s defence was a bit overconfident, but he also mentioned that Patna too missed two of their important members of the side in Sunil and Monu Goyat.
“If two senior players like Monu and Sunil are not in the team, that team suffers a little bit.
I think if Sunil was playing tonight, we might not have committed so many errors in the defense. We saw how he tackled Chandran Ranjit near the baulk line in the previous match and he could have done the same to Vijay.”
he said.
Sunil was replaced by Shubham Sinde, who could manage only one tackle point, and his inexperience clearly showed as he attempted advance tackles. Patna’s coach said that the result of the game might have been different had their team not tried those advance tackles.
