PKL 2019 | We couldn't quite control game because of defence, says Rohit Kumar
PKL
Bengaluru Bulls skipper Rohit Kumar, said that they lost control of the game because defense kept making mistakes. Bengaluru lost their match 40-42 against Bengal Warriors last night and so they are currently 4th on the points table with 7 losses and 9 wins in 16 matches they have played so far.
Bengaluru Bulls gave Bengal one hell of a fight but failed to hold their own in the final few raids. Even after getting all-out in the first half they did not give Bengal a huge lead with Bengal leading the game by a point after 20 minutes. The second half started with a four point raid by Pawan Sehrawat, who till then had scored only a single point. The score was level towards the end but it was Rohit Kumar and Pawan Sehrawat who got by Bengal defence and hence the two point win the difference in favour of Bengal.
“We erred after half time, when there were some five minutes remaining on the clock. We had a lead and we couldn't maintain it… the raiders made a mistake. We scored a lot of points, but because of the defence we couldn't quite control the game. Otherwise the game was even at most times, and we were even ahead. It's not like we were far behind in the game. We have six more games to go, we will keep trying,” skipper Rohit Kumar said in the post-match press conference.
Their defence gave away three points to Maninder when they were leading by a point and there were only three minutes left on the clock. This mistake summed up Bengaluru’s defender's performance in the whole match. They scored a total of seven points with Ankit and Saurab Nandal scoring 3 points each but between the two of them, they had 7 unsuccessful tackles to their names as well. Even though Pawan scored 19 points in 20 raids, he was tackled as many as 7 times and it was his unsuccessful raid in the dying minutes that tipped the scale in Bengal Warriors' favour.
Mohamed Nabibakhsh tackled Pawan around 5 times and while talking about this skipper Rohit said, “When he had a few tackles at the start, we weren't really fazed. But then when he kept attacking, it's then we wondered what kind of defensive tactic they were trying to execute. At the end, he made the difference in the match.”
“Towards the end, I got tackled. Even if I had scored one point then we would have definitely won. But then Maninder Singh is also a good raider, and he took some points away. For that last raid (when tackled by Adarsh T), it wasn't like I was over-confident. Adarsh is also a good player,” Pawan Sherawat explained.
