PKL 2019 | Had made proper plans against Manjeet Chhillar, says Gholamreza Mazandarani

Telugu Titans raiders had a good day at the office as the team managed to get the better of Tamil Thalaivas which have players like Manjeet Chhillar, Mohit Chhillar and Ran Singh in their defence. Telugu won the game 35-30 towards the end and their strategies against the opposition defenders worked well for them in the game on Monday.

According to their Iranian coach Gholamreza Mazandarani, the team went into the game with proper planning against Manjeet and that worked well for them which helped them register the win as well.

“We knew Manjeet Chillar is always trying to catch so we made a plan for him and that was not to go directly for touch but play slowly against him and sometimes changed a little bit so Manjeet made a mistake and raiders were successful. We noticed that when raiders go for touch, he initiates a tackle against them but when they are not doing anything there are more chances that he will make a mistake,” Mazandarani told reporters after the match. 

When asked about having players like Siddharth Desai and Vishal Bhardwaj in the team, he said, “I don’t think this is lucky. We have a plan in some ways we are successful. He (Vishal) has a lot of unsuccessful tackles as well. He is a good player but he needs more control over his mind as he is a little too aggressive at times and because of that, his game is getting affected but when he controls himself he is the best defender at the corner position and he can get better than this if he controls mind and play with plan.”

From as many as eight tackle attempts, Bhardwaj managed to get six points and played an important role in their win against the neighbouring team. The left corner defender talked about the impact of the coach’s guidance which helped him rectify his mistakes and he was able to put in a good show in this game.

“We made a lot of mistakes in the starting so the coach sat with us and told our mistakes as well made us practice very hard and that is why we are able to perform very well now and so today both defence and offence did well and we are improving with every match and if we win the upcoming matches we will reach the playoffs,” Bhardwaj explained.

“The last time we played them (Thalaivas). He (Rahul Chaudhari) played really well so we were in pressure so coach made us practice against him and I have played with him so I know his skill and like last time we didn’t want him to do well against us so we tried our best.

On the other hand, Siddharth had a decent day on the mat. Although he failed to get to his super 10 but the nine points that he scored in the match were useful in the win. He went past the defenders who were trying to block him with sheer power during the game. 

“We made mistakes in raiding at the start but we practised well afterwards and the coach told me to improve and work on my mistakes so that is why now I am playing well. Every defender has a skill and if you know that, you can raid accordingly and I did just that and was successful,” Siddharth stated. 

When asked about his skill of avoiding the block attempts, the raider replied, “I was tackled the same way in the previous matches also and so I knew they were going to come at me with a chain and I played accordingly.”