We wanted to play a defensive game throughout the match, says Rishank Devadiga
UP Yoddha captain Rishank Devadiga has stated that they had planned to play a defensive game throughout the match against Telugu Titans and were successful in doing that as well. With only four more matches to go, UP Yoddha would want to win all their matches to make to the top three of the Zone-B.
UP Yoddha managed to defeat Telugu Titans 27-20 at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Vizag. In a low scoring encounter, the
“We wanted to play a defensive game throughout. Our defence was exceptional today, they didn’t give the opposition raiders too much freedom. Our plan was that only one raider will attack them and score points. Prashanth Kumar Rai did that job for us in the first half. The turning point of the game was Sachin Kumar getting us the two points that enabled us to inflict the All-Out,” Devadiga said.
Apart from Rai, who fetched his team some good raid points, Nitesh Kumar from the defensive unit scored five raid points in the cause of the Yoddha win. Allrounders Shrikant Jadav and Sachin Kumar too contributed three points each for the Yoddhas. Thus a well-executed strategy worked wonders for the team.
“We managed to score crucial points in important junctures of the match. We scored points off them in the Do-or-Die raids, while not giving them too many points in such situations. We were able to score when required and also make sure we didn’t give away too many points and that helped us win,” Devadiga assessed.
With only 39 points from 18 games, the UP-based team stand fourth on the Zone-A points table. Thus they will have to win all their remaining four encounters to have a chance of making it to the playoffs.
“We are in a sink-or-sail situation. We have four more games remaining, and we have to win all four if we are to stand a chance of qualifying for the Playoffs. We are targeting one match at a time. We played according to our strategy today and it worked throughout. One of our strategies was to keep the opposition raiders quiet and we were hugely successful. Nitesh Kumar had the better of Rahul Chaudhari all game long. That gave us extra motivation to perform better,” Devadiga added.
On the other hand, the loss has only made the road to the playoffs more difficult for Telugu Titans who are in a slightly better situation on the Zone-B points table as compared to their opponents. The Titans have 45 points from the 17 matches they have played in the tournament.
“Our raiders could have played better today. We were leading by a point at the end of the first half, but after that our raiders were contained well in the second half. Our defence, especially at the Left Corner, could have done better as well,” Sai Prasad said.
“After U.P. Yoddha got the All-Out we knew that they will play safe and go on the defensive, opting to play on the Do-or-Die raids. We needed to change the match situation, but we couldn’t get points. We were leading and hadn’t given up on the match, but the defence gave away a few points as well. We were hopeful of making a comeback until the end, but weren’t able to convert attempted tackles into points, or get raid points,” said Vishal Bhardwaj.
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