Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5: Five talking points from Day 43 of PKL 5

#3 Where are the Do or Die raids?

The Pirates and Titans went all out in the first half of their encounter

When a team has two empty raids in succession, it leads to a Do-or-Die raid on their next attempt. It is a tactic that many teams play on and even when the teams don't intentionally force, it is common to see it come about during the course of play.

Yet in the first half of the Pirates' clash against the Titans, it was almost non-existent. We rarely got to see a Do-or-Die raid, if at all, as both teams were picking up points almost every second raid, either through the raid or through their defensive effort. For one half, this was a contest where both teams just went all-out, did not pay much heed to tactical moves and concentrated on merely picking up as many points as possible.

It reflected in a very fast-paced encounter where the teams traded blows -- the Pirates started so swiftly out of the blocks and effected a quick All Out on the Titans before the Titans came roaring back with an All Out of their own, the home side then inflicting another before the break.

The Titans too seemed better suited to this approach as we have seen them struggle when they try to play a tactical game. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't sustain the effort in the second half, going back to some bad habits, which helped the Pirates run away with the game in the end.