PKL 2019 | Abhishek Singh executed strategy brilliantly, asserts Fazel Atrachali
U Mumba skipper Fazel Atrachali, while talking about Abhishek Singh’s surprise raid, has stated that Abhishek Singh listened to him and executed the strategy, they made, brilliantly. This raid solidified their position as well as helped them win the match against UP Yoddha by three points.
U Mumba received their first all-out in the eighth minute of the match and they had scored only two points till then. They came back from lagging behind by nine points to just one by the time the first half ended. In the second-half too, the match got away from them for a little while but they made another excellent comeback courtesy of Abhishek Singh’s surprise super raid. Mumba was lagging behind by two points when six minutes were left on the clock and then the super raid happened. Fazel Atrachali smartly was standing beside the midline with Athul MS, giving UP Yoddha’s defence a misleading impression that he was the one coming to raid, when suddenly Abhishek ran up to them and was able to take UP Yoddha's defence by surprise.
“The way their defence was set up, I figured they were expecting a left-sided raider. So I told Abhishek to run in and surprise them. And he executed the strategy brilliantly,” Atrachali said in the post-match press conference.
The raid led to an all-out and so U Mumba got a three-point lead which was followed by two-point raids by both Arjun Deshwal and Abhishek. The raids gave Mumba a cushion and so even after multi-point raids, UP Yoddha were unable to save the match. Singh was the highest scorer in the match with 11 points in 16 raid attempts where he got out only once while raiding.
“These things cannot be discussed. These are decisions to be made in the spur of the moment. Fazel had told me I'll make Athul MS stand close to the midline and then you attack from the other side. I knew Nitesh would try a Thigh Hold, so I had my escape plan ready in case he pounced. He did and thankfully I was able to execute a good raid,” Abhishek explained when asked about the pre-planning of the surprise attack.