PKL 2019 | Senior players weren’t up to mark this season, admits J Udaya Kumar
Tamil Thalaivas' coach J Udaya Kumar has said that the reason for a bad season is the team’s overdependence on the senior players who were not up to the mark this season. The Thalaivas lost their last match against Bengal Warriors by four points and finished at the bottom of the points table.
Tamil Thalaivas faced the same issue in the last match that they have faced the whole season which is closing the game. They lost against Bengal Warriors despite both teams tying at the same score after the first half but it was Thaliavas who suffered an all-out first and failed to recover. Hence they ended up losing the match by four points. The Thalaivas started the season well but lost their plot midway after their first seven was disturbed due to an injury.Â
“The senior players obviously weren’t up to the mark this season and the younger players, who were performing better, fell prey to injury concerns. Hemant (Chauhan) had to sit out due to injuries and V Ajith Kumar too has had a few niggles that has slowed him down a bit,” coach Udaya Kumar said at the post-match press conference.
Tamil Thalaivas had big names like Ajay Thakur, Manjeet Chillar, Mohit Chillar into their squad but they failed to make an impact and hence Tamil started losing matches. Their top scorer in the raiding department Rahul Chaudhari finished the season with only 130 raid points and the team was able to win only four out of their 22 matches.
“We were heavily reliant on our senior players and we didn’t nurture our younger players the way we should have. Once the seniors suffered a few injuries, we couldn’t replace them and that really hurt us after what was a decent start,” the Tamil coach concluded.