PKL 2018 | Siddharth Desai needs more time to recover, says Gholamreza Mazandarani

Siddharth Desai has been one of the finds of the season as the youngster has been scoring an incredible number of raid points in the ongoing sixth edition of the Pro Kabaddi League. He made a comeback to the U Mumba team after sitting on the bench because of his shoulder injury and played their last home game against Tamil Thalaivas. However, he had to be taken off the mat in the second half by the coach after he scored five raid points. 

“Siddharth Desai was making a comeback after an injury. I think he needs more time to recover. He could have continued for longer, and he played better today than yesterday, but I feel he will be a 100% ready before our next match. We need him to be fully fit for our next match against Gujarat Fortunegiants,” Gholamreza said in the post-match press conference in Mumbai.

“We are having a good selection headache because we have four to five very good raiders. They are all playing well, and it gives the team management a good feeling when we are spoilt for choice while choosing our lineup.”

Thanking the U Mumba fans, skipper Fazel Atrachali said, “Firstly, I would like to thank all the fans for their continued support. They gave us a very good feeling every time we stepped onto the mat. I have nothing more to say. Their support reflected in our victories, so I would like to thank all the fans once again. Without the fans, the sport is nothing. The players really like it when they know they have someone cheering for them, so the fans play a very important part in the game. It is a dream for all foreign players to play here because of the support we get from the fans.”

Tamil Thalaivas coach E Bhaskaran believed that it was because of some errors at crucial junctures of the game that they lost the match against Mumbai yesterday. Bhaskaran said that it is time that the back-up raiders like Sukesh Hegde and Athul MS should start doing well for the team now.

“U Mumba played a very controlled game today and didn’t give us an inch. We made mistakes at crucial junctures due to the pressure they put on us and hence we lost the game. We were not able to follow the strategies we had set during the game. Our raiders were getting tackled on the first raids instead of the third raids. We expected a better performance from our backup raiders Sukesh Hegde and Athul MS,” explained Bhaskaran.

“We included Athul MS today because of U Mumba’s defensive strategies. We had chances to get more bonus points with the way their defence plays, and Athul MS is better at getting bonus points than Jasvir Singh, so we started with him. He is tall as well and can make good use of his height to get those bonus points. But, unfortunately, he got out when we didn’t need him to.”