Pro Kabaddi 2019, Match 48: "The coach trusted me and that gave me the confidence," says Ajith Kumar of Tamil Thalaivas
The Tamil Thalaivas snatched a thrilling tie in their second home game of the Pro Kabaddi 2019 with a 31-31 result against Puneri Paltan.
The match went down to the wire as Pune led 31-30 going into the final raid, but Pune raider Manjeet was tackled by Tamil Thalaivas and the match ended all square.
The star of the show was Tamil Thalaivas raider V Ajith Kumar who brought his team back with a 4-point Super Raid late in the 2nd half when his side was on the brink of an All Out. He was the last man standing in the 82nd raid with just over 2 minutes remaining and his Super Raid brought the score back to 29-29.
"I'm very happy to have done this in a home game", said Ajith Kumar after the match. "It is great that the coach trusted me today and that gave me the confidence. He instructed me before the raid what to do and it worked out."
Thalaivas coach E Bhaskaran was pleased with his side's comeback into the match after it looked like they were going to suffer a second consecutive home loss.
"This result will give a big boost to the team. It is not easy to come back in kabaddi and Ajith's raid was big as it brought us back into the game", said Bhaskaran.
Rahul Chaudhari led the early charge for the home side with 5 quick raid points in the first half. And the coach mentioned that he was keen to rebound from his poor performance on Saturday.
"I had to substitute Rahul yesterday because of some struggles, but before today's game he promised me that he will bounce back and he gave us a great start. He did what he promised and that is why we never fell behind early in the game," said Bhaskaran.
Rahul too vowed to get better when he said, "I'm still not fully happy with my performance level. I got caught in the Super Tackle which could have won us the match. So I want to get even better."
Pune coach Anup Kumar, however, was not happy with the result. He was clearly upset at his team's error in the closing stages of the match.
"No, I'm not happy at all with this result. We should have won this match after getting the second All Out on them," said Anup.
Pune captain Surjeet Singh had 7 tackle points today and Anup said that he needed more such performances from his captain in every match.
About the last few minutes in the match, Anup admitted, "We made one big mistake and that cost us in the end. It undid all the good work we did in the match."
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