PKL 2019 | Our defence played very well today, says BC Ramesh
Bengal Warriors coach BC Ramesh has stated that his team’s defence played well as compared to their previous matches as they scored a total of 10 points as opposed to oppositions' 6. Bengal Warriors won against U Mumba last night in their third home game with the scoreline of 29-26.Â
Bengal Warriors conceded a super raid in the very first minute of the match to U Mumba’s Arjun Deshwal. The raiders from both the sides were able to score points and the teams were playing on do-or-die raid. After the initial shock, Bengal were able to inflict an all-out onto Mumba when there were 6 minutes left for the first-half to be over. After that, there were two super-raids from one side each but Mumba’s were more impactful and they took out three players. So, the roller-coaster first half ended with Bengal leading with three points.
“Our defence played very well today. We were expecting our defence and raiders to perform and they did. We also made a few changes to our starting 7 and devised some plans. The defence performed well as a result of that and in offence replacing K. Prapanjan with Sukesh Hegde turned out to be beneficial for us. I was also confident in Mohammad Nabibakhsh and knew that he would contribute in defence. Maninder Singh as you all know will always contribute and he played well today. Apart from conceding a few bonus points in the end, we played well throughout,” coach BC Ramesh said in the post-match press conference.Â
The match came down to U Mumba last and do-or-die raid where only 3 of Bengal defenders were left and Mumba was behind by only point. Despite having a brilliant match, Arjun Deshwal was not able to do much and got super tackled hence increasing Bengal’s lead to three and them winning the match. The hero of the super tackle and hero of defence was Rinku Narwal with 4 points. Mohammed Nabibakhsh also scored 4 tackle points.
“We have many raiders and they are bound to play well. In the last few games our defence wasn’t up to the mark and we were mostly tackling opposition raiders towards the end of matches. So, we had decided that our defence was going to fight right from the start tonight. Our captain also told the defenders the same thing about playing hard and with passion and they did well today,” the coach said when asked if raiders performed better than defenders.
In the raiding department, it was a joint effort by Sukesh Hegde who for the first time got a chance to play from the start and skipper Maninder Singh. Though he Hegde took the lead in the raiding unit and scored 8 points whereas skipper scored one less point.Â
“In the last few games that Prapanjan had played, we utilized Sukesh in the end of those matches and were rewarded for doing so. So, after realizing how well he’s performing this year, we decided to use him from the beginning. Sukesh is a confidence player and since he was confident, we opted to use him and were sure that he would score points. He carried out the plans we had made to a tee and I believe that he can play even better in the upcoming games,” coach BC Ramesh said on Sukesh Hegde performance.Â
“I am happy with my performance and that I got to play the full game. It increased my confidence as well and now we have another match at home. If we win that then it makes our chances of making it to the playoffs easier,” Sukesh said and signed off.