PKL 2019 | We owed the young players a chance at this stage, believes Krishan Kumar Hooda

PKL 2019 | We owed the young players a chance at this stage, believes Krishan Kumar Hooda

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PKL

Dabang Delhi coach Krishan Kumar Hooda has said that they owed the young players a chance as the team has already booked a spot in the semi-finals and they had nothing to lose. He also appreciated their performance and said the young players can perform even better if they are given the opportunity.

Dabang Delhi is not only the topper in the league table but have also booked their spot in the semi-finals and so in their match last night, they decided to give chances to the younger players in the team. All the main players were rested and Meraj Sheykh was the only player who had made a contribution in earlier wins. Though the team didn’t have the ideal start as the defence wasn’t up to the mark and hence they received the first all-out six minutes into the game. UP Yoddha built on that lead and by the halftime, Delhi was lagging behind by 10 points. They were unable to recover and they lost the match by 17 points.

“Most of these players were in their rookie season excluding Meraj Sheykh. Considering that they did not have much experience, I think they performed really well. I am pretty sure that they will perform even better in the coming times. We owed them a chance at this stage, and I think they performed alright,” Krishan Kumar Hooda said in the post match press conference.

There were some notable performances from Delhi’s side in the match, namely, Meraj Shejkh, Sombir and Neeraj Narwal. Neeraj scored his career’s first super 10 and even scored a single tackle point. Sombir handled the defence and finished the match with six tackles and three raid points. Meraj did his thing and was able to score seven raid points. 

“He was rested according to the team strategy. Right now, we don’t have much to lose so it was important for us to give our younger players a look-in. We had this chance, so we decided to take it up,” Hooda said when asked about Naveen Kumar.

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