PKL 2019 | We kept fighting till the end and the result is evident, says Krishan Kumar Hooda
After his side's eighth consecutive win, Dabang Delhi coach Krishan Kumar Hooda said that his team believes in fighting till the end and the results of the hard work were evident. Dabang Delhi beat Jaipur Pink Panthers by a two point margin in the dying minutes of the game thanks to Naveen Kumar.
In the second raid of the match, Chandran Ranjit scored a 5 point raid and reduced the Pink Panthers to just two players on the mat. Then three minutes into the game Dabangs managed to inflict the first all-out and open up a seven point lead. Jaipur, however, made a quick comeback with swift raiding and astute defensive skills and put the final nail in the coffin Nitin Raval executed a Super Raid of five points and Dabang Delhi were all-out in 9 minutes so the scores were level.
“Kabaddi is played for 40 minutes. And anything can happen till the final whistle. Dabang Delhi K.C. takes pride in fighting till the final whistle. It’s not about winning or losing. No team will win all of their matches. But belief is everything. Even when we were down by four with just over 30 seconds left, we had faith that we would win. We kept fighting till the end and the result is evident,” Dabang Delhi coach Krishan Kumar Hooda said in the post-match press conference.
In the second half when Jaipur were about to get suffer their second all-out, Sachin Narwal came as a substitute and scored two points to keep his team in the hunt for a win. Panthers then, with the help of two super tackles and steady raiding, built on that lead and inflicted another all-out on Dabang Delhi to go up by 6 points with 9 minutes left on the clock. Delhi came back into the game thanks to a super raid by Vijay which got them a bonus and two touch point shifted some momentum towards them.
“Like everyone has been saying since the start of the season, this is the toughest season of vivo Pro Kabaddi. And today we had one of our toughest challenges. We were following the gameplan but weren’t able to execute it to perfection. Towards the end, both our offence and defence came through to get us the win. I told Naveen (Kumar), who had been tackled a couple of times that don’t worry, you will get a successful raid. And he did. And got us the win,” skipper Joginder Narwal explained.
Post the all-out, Naveen Kumar put in raid after raid and hardly came back empty handed which meant that he ended the game as the top scorer with 16 points added to his overall numbers.
“The coach has taught me an invaluable lesson. Prefer dying on the mat than surrendering when the chips are down. That mindset has rubbed off on the rest of the squad as well and that’s the message I try repeating on the mat. That is how we play, that has been the key to our success and we will continue in the same vein for the remainder of the season,” Narwal signed off.
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