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Patna Pirates went through to the semi-finals of the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi 2015 at the expense of defending champions Jaipur Pink Panthers after a narrow 26-24 win. Despite the small margin, the Patna Pirates were dominant throughout the game and seemed to control the game really well. After racing away into an early lead, the Pirates never looked like surrendering it and managed to maintain that gap throughout.
Speaking to Sportskeeda after seeing his side booked a semi-final spot, the Patna Pirates coach cum manager Kartik Sansanwal expressed his delight at how well his team executed their strategy and kept their cool during the game.
“We didn’t have a plan for the entire forty minutes. We planned for five-five minutes at a time and it worked. We had decided to be slightly aggressive in the first five minutes, which we did and managed to establish a lead. After that we just waited for the right moments to come and pounced on it really well,” said the Kartik Sansanwal.
Kartik revealed his side did extremely well to handle the pressure in the end hold on to a win.
“It became really tight at the end and I must commend my team who held their nerves brilliantly. We knew what we had to do and waited for their do or die raids. We were able to kill time during our raids and that added pressure on Jaipur allowing us to maintain a certain gap throughout.”
The youngsters responded to Suresh Kumar
Patna Pirates gave a lot of bonuses away but made sure they never lost out on the number and were eventually able to defend their lead they built in the first half.
“We knew we were giving away the bonuses, but we wanted to have five defenders on the field all the time to defend against the top raiders from the Pink Panthers. Our defence responded in an impeccable way and that’s why we won today,” added Kartik Sansanwal.
The Patna Pirates coach was quick to highlight the contribution of D. Suresh Kumar, the senior most member of the Patna Pirates squad. He was given the responsibility of organizing a defence and he did his job perfectly according to Kartik Sansanwal.
“We lacked maturity early on in the season, so we decided to hand over the responsibility of organizing the defence to D. Suresh Kumar who is the most senior player in our camp and I must say he did a fantastic job. The youngsters respect him and followed his instructions well and that’s the reason behind some of our latest defensive displays,” added the Patna team manager.
After winning two must-win games, Patna Pirates face a huge task of beating U Mumba in their own backyard, a feat which has been achieved just once in the two seasons of the Pro Kabaddi. But with such a strong looking defence, a surprise might just be around the corner.
