Thalaivas Titans were happy after they got back their star raider Siddharth Desai popularly and fondly called Bahubali Desai in the auctions before season 8 of the Vivo Pro Kabaddi League. The Titans seemed to have got a balanced team with a star raider, good support raiders and an experienced raider in Rohit Kumar.
However, things have not gone as per the plan for the Titans as their star raider got injured at the very beginning of the season. Desai is now all but out of the rest of the season. Titans would have hoped that Rohit Kumar would step up in the absence of Desai, but he couldn’t do much because he also got carried an injury which meant he wasn’t as effective.
Titans, therefore, have had to rely on young raiders like Rajneesh and Adarsh T. They haven’t disappointed, but they have lacked the killer instinct as the Titans have lost quite a few close games.
In their last game against U Mumba the Titans raider were in front of Iran’s Fazel Atrachali, who hasn’t done much so far in PKL8.
Yet the Titans coach Jagadeesh Kumble was of the view that the young raiders of his team got a little overwhelmed by Fazel’s presence on the court.
“Our raiders were disturbed after seeing Fazel Atrachali on the ground. A player like Fazel always puts you under pressure. These are young raiders, we know that they are new players. They will only perform well when they do not take pressure. I have left them free and just told them to take care of Fazel’s skills” .
Kumble was quoted as saying by Sportskeeda.
Fazel took full advantage of this fear as he scored his first high 5 of the season. He ended the game with six tackle points.
If the Titans have to get to the playoffs, they need to learn from these experiences and come back stronger.
Also read 👉 Bulls remain 2nd on table despite loss to PP; Mumba beat Titans by 7 points; Thalaivas draw again
