PKL 2019 | Individual performances don’t matter if team doesn’t perform well, believes Ajay Thakur

Tamil Thalaivas suffered their sixth loss of the season after their defence disappointed them in their encounter last night against Bengal Warriors. The Thalaivas started steady but because of the mistakes in Prapanjan’s successive raids, they were all-out 10 minutes into the game. Though they did their best to recover and finished the first half with a score of only a single point difference.

In the raiding department, Ajay Thakur performed well and finished the match with nine points and he also crossed the 800 raid points mark in the Pro Kabaddi League. Though he did lack support from other raiders such as Rahul Chaudhari, Shabeer Bappu who weren’t able to make much of an impact as they scored one and four respectively.

“Look, it’s a team game and individual performances don’t matter if the team doesn’t perform well. I want everyone to play well and only then will the team also perform well. That’s what we need to correct in the upcoming games,” Thakur said in the post-match press conference.

The defence was the biggest point of concern for the team as they were only able to score six points in the whole match. Ajeet and Manjeet were the top scorer with three points each, most of which came in early minutes of the match. Even after the return of Manjeet Chillar, the defence was unable to stop themselves for repeating past mistakes. Both the corners (Mohit Chillar and Ran Singh) were appearing as a weak link as they were unable to score even a single point. The defence all-together made as many as 18 unsuccessful tackle attempts.

“We were lacking in our coordination tonight. The defenders were playing well to be fair, but you have to factor in that the opposition boasted top-quality raiders. If you notice, you’ll see that Maninder Singh of Bengal Warriors has performed consistently against all teams so far. However, I felt that when we conceded points with four or five men of our team on the mat, it cost us. I feel that’s our weakness this season and that’s where we make mistakes,” Thakur concluded.