PKL 2019 | Biggest challenge for me is to improve upon previous season's performance, says Siddharth Desai
Raider Siddharth Desai was last season’s biggest find of PKL, scoring a total of 218 raid points in 21 matches for U Mumba. But his injury prone nature meant that he missed a lot of matches. He is also the costliest buy of this season, as Telugu Titans spent a mammoth Rs.1.45 crore for the raider.
Telugu Titans had a poor last season, especially in the raiding department as a result of which they decided to let go of their star raider Rahul Chaudari. Taking his place as the main raider for the titans will be Siddharth Desai, and it would be quite natural for people to compare the two stars.
“My journey in the PKL has just begun. He is too big a player to be compared with me,” Desai told Sportstar.
Desai made a serious jump in the money department from season 6 to the current season as well, as his stocks skyrocketed after the incredible sixth season he had.
“This is only my second season after four years of long wait before U Mumba gave me the big break last season. I will always remain grateful to them for giving me this huge opportunity,I don’t think there will be any pressure on me because of the price tag for me I was bought by U Mumba for Rs. 36 lakhs and that was no small amount,” Desai explained.
There were several changes made in the coaching staff of Titans as well. Talking about them, the 27-year-old said “The best of Titans' campaign is that we have a very experienced Iranian coach Gholamreza Mazandarani and also his deputy Jagdish Kumble who know the art of getting the best out of the players and we are confident of winning the title this time around given the kind of long preparations here.”
Desai is also the fastest to 50 raid points and is the joint fastest to 100 raid points, and maintaining the same form in the upcoming season would require a lot of effort and hard work.
“I am fit and excited at playing in front of huge home crowd for Titans which I always felt has had a large fan base across the country given the brand of game it plays,” he says.
The format has also changed from the previous season, ass now each team will play each other twice, with the edition designed to be long and tiring.
“The biggest challenge for me should be to improve upon my last edition’s performance. It is going to be tough in a league which features very well balanced outfits. This will be the most open competition in the PKL and there can be no clear favourites,” Siddarth signed off.
0
0
0
0
0
0
Comments
Sign up or log in to your account to leave comments and reactions
0 Comments