PKL 2019 | Opponents were great and deserved to win, admits Pawan Sehrawat
PKL
Bengaluru Bulls skipper Pawan Sehrawat has admitted that they faltered at crucial moments in the semi-final match and their opponents Dabang Delhi played really well and deserved to win. He also talked about Rohit Kumar’s fitness and the missed chance of making a comeback towards the end.Â
Bengaluru Bulls failed to overcome the issues they have been facing in the past few matches and so ended up losing in the semi-finals by a six-point margin. Pawan Sehrawat revival was a big issue that they faced but even with Pawan was sitting out for almost 20 minutes, he was able to score 18 raid points in 20 attempts. It was their defence that disappointed them as they were able to score only six tackle points.Â
“You cannot rely on Super Tackles to win games. When you concede an All-Out four minutes into the game, you are already behind. The opponents were great no doubt and deserved the win,” Pawan said in the post-match press conference.Â
Dabang Delhi inflicted the first all-out three minutes into the game and the other one when nine minutes were left for the first half to end. Though Bengaluru Bulls had a bit of luck with technical points where they scored points because the raider ran out of time and was lobby out the other time. The Bulls failed to inflict even one all-out which didn’t help in closing the points gap.Â
“We were lucky to score two technical Super Tackles. I don’t remember us scoring a single tackle point in a defence of six or seven. We couldn’t stop them in Do-or-die raids either. We just didn’t play as well as we should have in a semi-final,” Pawan explained.
“Rohit hasn’t been at a 100 per cent fitness for a while. He is still nursing an injury, but he played today because the team needed a leader on the mat. We also needed a third raider who could provide a few points and Rohit did that for us today."
Bengaluru had a chance of a comeback when only four players of Dabang Delhi were left on the mat. The point difference was of five points and Chandran Ranjit came into a do-or-die raid, if he would have been ousted then, Pawan could have tired to inflict an all-out hence closing the gap but in that raid, their defenders made mistakes and ended up gifting him two points.
“Towards the end, we gave up two points in Do-or-die raids. We had rallied back so well and could have still won if not for that raid. Had we tackled him, we would have gotten them down to three on the mat, but instead, those two touch points sealed the game for them. I'm not saying that was the reason we lost, but we had the chance to win,” the skipper signed off.
