PKL 2019 | U Mumba have good combination in defence : Fazel Atrachali

Chiranjibi Pati
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Fazel Atrachali is of the opinion that the defensive combination in U Mumba is very good in the ongoing seventh edition of the PKL. In spite of winning only two out of their four games at home, Atrachali didn’t term the home leg “bad” in this season considering the performance of other sides.

U Mumba had a great season in the previous edition of the league but in the seventh edition, they have failed to replicate their last season's performance. Although their raiding unit is a young one, they have a lot of experience in their defensive unit with the likes of skipper Fazel Atrachali and Sandeep Narwal at the corner positions. They also have Surinder Singh at the cover position who is looking good in the tournament so far. 

According to Mumba captain Fazel Atrachali, it’s a good combination in their defence for the seventh edition of the league.

“Our (corner) combination is very good and we showed in the match. We have a good combination with the cover defenders also. This is very important and we will try doing well in all the coming matches also,” Atrachali told SportsCafe during an exclusive interview.

“We have a lot of raiders like Arjun (Deshwal), Baliyan (Rohit), Abhishek Singh etc. Every match we have a different idea and different planning and use different raiders. They are young and are playing well. I think we have two more months and in the future, they will do well.”

It has been a season when the players are under some pressure of doing well at home. The tournament started with the Hyderabad leg where Telugu Titans failed to put up a good show and lost all their matches. The ongoing Ahmedabad leg has also been a terrible one as the home team Gujarat Fortunegiants are yet to gift a win to their supporters. Mumba, in their home leg, managed to win two games out of four and as per the skipper that was decent enough for the team.

 © PKL

“I am feeling really well and so are the players. We had two wins and two defeats in the home leg and that was a good feeling as well. We saw Patna and Telugu not doing that well at home. Our performance was not bad and this is good as we keep looking forward to another match,” the left corner defender opined. 

In the last home game against the Fortunegiants, Mumba came up with a surprising move by sending Surinder for a raid in the second half and the cover defender paid back the faith put in him by getting rid of four defenders on a single raid. That four-point raid tilted the game completely in Mumba’s favour and they managed to register their second win at the Financial Capital of the country.  

“Match is important and the game is important not the players. We need only points, sometimes the raiders do well and sometimes the defenders. We decided to send in Surinder and he got four points for us. That was good,” the Mumba skipper explained.

Elaborating further about the right cover defender, the Iranian said that he has got more matured and is not going for rash tackles for which he was earlier infamous in the league. Surinder has 24 tackle points from seven matches and he is their best defender so far.

“In the last two years, Surinder was too young. This is the third season for him and he understands more about kabaddi. Now, he knows at what time he should show some control and what time he should go for a tackle. This is a good change for him. Now, he is a good player and he has more experience which makes him more dangerous this season,” Atrachali mentioned.

Iran has produced some of the world-class corner defenders like Atrachali and Abozar Mighani who took the league by storm in the previous seasons. They also have players like Mohammad Nabibakhsh who is brilliant in the raids and tackles and is a member of the Bengal side in the ongoing season. Atrachali also spoke about the impact of the league and the Iranian team winning the Asian Games gold in his country.

“As we won the gold medal in the Asian Games, kabaddi is more popular and now people follow kabaddi more. In Iran, they are playing the sport professionally for the last 20-30 years. There was a game similar to kabaddi before but that had a different name and different rules. Now because of Asian Games and Pro Kabaddi, the people are more interested in kabaddi and now we have more players.”

“This is a great help for the sport as because of the players from Korea, Iran and Kenya, the people of these places watch kabaddi. Around 90% of the followers are from TV. As the games are shown live, more people come to watch the sport and the following of the sport increases,” the Iranian defender signed off.

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