PKL 2019 | We withdrew Maninder Singh to not aggravate his injury any further, reveals BC Ramesh
PKL
Bengal Warriors’ coach BC Ramesh has revealed that the management decided to take Maninder Singh off the court right after the injury as they didn’t want to aggravate that. The coach also explained that he was satisfied with the performance of the Bengal defenders against Delhi’s top raiders.
Despite the comprehensive win against table-toppers Dabang Delhi, Bengal Warriors would be a little worried because of the injury to their skipper and the best player of the season Maninder Singh. He got hit after collecting 13 raid points from 12 attempts and the management decided not to let him play anymore. Ravindra Ramesh Kumawat replaced the captain on the mat for the Warriors for the rest of the game against Delhi. Coach BC Ramesh explained more about the injury during the post-match press conference.
“I’m not certain at the moment since the match just ended. We withdrew him to not aggravate the injury any further. He was in pain because Maninder isn’t the type of player who will leave the court with minor injuries. He’s played through hamstring and groin injuries in the past, but he was in a lot of pain tonight, which is why he had to leave the mat early,” Ramesh told reporters.
Apart from Maninder’s injury, Bengal had a great game as they managed to get the better of Delhi by 42-33. Ramesh was happy with the performance of his defenders as they went on to do exceedingly well in the match and performed well against Naveen Kumar and Chandran Ranjit.
“The game was good. Our raiding strategy worked to a tee and was successful. Our second raider plan also worked well, and the strategy was perfect. We allowed them just a few bonus points and disturbed their raiders. Rinku Narwal and Mayur Shivtarkar also performed well and executed a few good tackles. I’m satisfied with the defence’s display against challenging raiders like Naveen,” explained the Bengal coach.
“As far as our raiders are concerned, Maninder Singh, Mohammad Nabibakhsh and Sukesh Hegde were all successful. Towards the end, Maninder got injured due to some bad luck. We introduced Ravindra Ramesh Kumawat after that, but he also picked up an injury. Even Dabang Delhi K.C. played well, their raiders Naveen and Vijay did well and so did their defence, albeit not at their usual level.”
As both Dabang Delhi and Bengal Warriors have managed to get into the playoffs. Delhi has even got a direct entry into the semi-final as they are certain to stay in the top two places at the end of the league stage. Ramesh also spoke more about the high-voltage clash after it ended in their favour.
“Everyone knew that this was a high-voltage match. I never received as many calls from people asking me to arrange tickets for a game like today because of the teams that were involved in it. Everyone is aware that these two teams will be semi-finalists and that’s the reason the sides are being spoken about so much. It was a tough match in my opinion, but I was confident that we could win if we contained Naveen and Chandran Ranjit,” Ramesh signed off.
