PKL 2019 | Defence and offence were unable to back Pardeep’s performance, says Ram Mehar Singh
PKL
Three-time champions Patna Pirates coach Ram Mehar Singh has said that his team lost as the offence and defence were unable to back the main raiders performance. This was Patna’s sixth loss out of nine matches they have played so far, and they still remain at the bottom of the league points table.
Patna Pirates failed to perform after the first half, which resulted in them suffering their sixth loss of the season. Their defence and offence were unable to fire and except skipper Pardeep Kumar, no one was able to make an impact. Even though the first half ended with only a point's difference in Bengal's favour, the Pirates were unable to close that gap as they got all-out successively twice in the second half.
Patna Pirates, since season six, have had a record of losing every game in which they were the first to be all-out and Bengal Warriors led with that and proved it right.
“We played well in the first half. Our strategy was to play on our defence and draw their raiders deep into our half before attacking with Pardeep Narwal and Mohammad Maghsoudlou. But our defence did not fire. If a team’s defence is consistently putting in advanced tackles, even on the third raid, then one cannot expect them to do well,” coach Ram Mehar Singh said in the post-match press conference.
In the raiding department Pardeep Narwal started well with each 4 points in the first four of his raids but ones he got out none of his team members were able to revive him and the team got all-out. After coming back on the mat, Pardeep went in for a raid and got out ones again and the team followed the same pattern of getting all-out without a point being scored.
So, Patna’s biggest concern has been that none of the players were able to revive him and because of that, Pardeep has spent an average of 17 minutes of court in season seven. The support raiders were collectively able to score 6 points and most of them were in the first half.
The other point of concern is the defence, which scored a total of only 6 points in the match. Jaideep, Monu, and Vikas Jaglan scored 2 points each also they were unable to stop Bengal’s raiders and gave away easy points. They seemed lost after the first-half and thus they were the main reason for the team's loss.Â
Though in the end Pardeep did try his best to close the gap and scored a quick Super 10, but it was too late by then and his team lost the match by a 9 point margin.
“Our raiders Mohammad Maghsoudlou and Monu were not able to provide the necessary support for Pardeep. If you are not able to back up your main raider’s performance in defence and offence then things are bound to become difficult.
If you look at the first half, Maghsoudlou was able to support Pardeep with a few points. But later on, on two occasions where Pardeep got tackled, it led to an All-Out. So it was a case of lack of support for our main raider according to me,” coach Ram Mehar concluded.
