PKL 2018 | We will give our best, but all games are different, says Ajay Thakur

Tamil Thalaivas ran riot against last year’s Pro Kabaddi League winners - Patna Pirates - as they registered a massive 42-26 win in the season opener of this year’s tournament on Sunday. The home team was in total control of the match from the word go and comfortably managed to get off to a strong start in what will presumably be a busy season up ahead.

Indian kabaddi team and TT skipper, Ajay Thakur, along with coach E Bhaskaran, who was present at the post-match press conference, revealed their delight on Sunday night’s win. Thakur added that a good mix of youngsters in his team will be a positive sign going into the latter stages of the season.

"We do have a good offence and also a good defence with Manjeet leading Amit Hooda and Darshan J. We have a good mixture of experience and youth. We will give our best, but all games are different.

"It’s the first match of the new season so obviously it’s a good feeling and the confidence is very high. Both teams have made a few changes from last season," Thakur told reporters after the match.

TT head coach, Bhaskaran also heaped praise on his team as he said, "We got a lot of time to prepare as a team, so we played as the team should have played. The plan was to take the lead early on and never let the lead go out of hand and our plan was successful. Ajay (Thakur) played an outstanding game as everyone saw, Surjeet (Singh) got us points when we needed as well. Since our third raider and the defence were above average, we got this result, which is good for us!"

Meanwhile, defending champions Patna Pirates’ coach Ram Mehar Singh admitted that his side needed to work on their defence ahead of their next match, which is two days time.

"Things do not always go according to plan in a match. We need to look at our combination that took the mat and the correlation between the defence and offense. I believe we have good raiders… Last season, we were also dependent on Pardeep and Monu (Goyat) but had support from the defence as well. The players are fit and raring to do well.

"We have two days before our next game to hit back. We will practice more on our defence and hope we get better in the next match. It does take time… but I’m confident we will figure it out. We’ve come back strongly in the previous years as well. We will sort them out in due course," Singh added.