PKL 2019 | Raiding was lacking in beginning, defence was not set either, says Ram Mehar Singh

Patna Pirates are having a tough season this year and the Pardeep Narwal-led side is yet to put up a strong show in the seventh edition. Although they lost their previous game 35-38 against Delhi yesterday, it was not a close one at the beginning and Delhi had a huge lead of 16 points at one point of time in the first half.

Coach Ram Mehar Singh discussed the poor start which was a reason for their loss against Delhi. He said that the game was close because they managed to perform well as a unit in the second half of the match.

“The match came close towards the end, but the raiding was lacking in the beginning and the defence was not set either. Even then, we recovered well. The game was so close only because we started working well together after a point. But we had chances earlier in the match as well which we did not capitalise on. One of our biggest mistakes was when Pardeep Narwal went in to raid with a minute left and came back empty-handed. That was a point where we had to score. Other than that, the team performed well considering how good a team Dabang Delhi K.C. is,” the Patna coach said at the press conference.

Pardeep is the only player in the raiding department for Patna who has performed so far in the tournament. Although they have players like Jang Kun Lee and Mohammad Esmaeil Maghsoudlou in the squad, none of them has managed to support their skipper which is a major reason of the team failing to put up a good show in the seventh edition of the league.

“I hope that the defence performs well going forward and the second and third raider can support Pardeep well. Once the other raiders and the defence can support the main raider, you can see the difference in the way our team performs,” Ram Mehar said.