Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5 : U Mumba owner Ronnie Screwvala joins fans in protest against poor referring.
Saturday's crunch Pro Kabaddi League encounter between Jaipur and Mumbai once again threw light on the substandard refereeing that continues to plague the league. Visitors, U Mumba's qualification hopes were still hanging in the balance with a couple of games remaining.
However, the referee made sure that even their slightest hopes were killed courtesy some appalling officiating. The usual suspect, Jasvir Singh was once again in the spotlight for influencing the referee.
Despite no touch on U Mumba's corner defender, Hadi Oshtarak, Jasvir swore on the mat that he had touched him.
Before we could come to terms with the situation, the referee decided to award the point to Jaipur which ultimately proved to be the difference between both the teams. It was a morale-damaging decision that completely dampened the spirits of U Mumba who looked determined to win up and until that stage of the game.
The usually reserved U Mumba owner, Ronnie Screwvala joined the chorus of fans who vociferously expressed their displeasure on Twitter. Here are some of the tweets that Ronnie re-tweeted.
While Ronnie himself did not express his opinion, his retweets confirm that he too is extremely disgusted with the level of officiating. He even shared a tweet which suggested that the game's credibility has taken a huge beating.
U Mumba's coach, Bhaskaran was surprisingly silent on the issue at the post-match press conference. The veteran manager instead decided to congratulate the opposition for winning the tense battle.
"I would like to congratulate Jaipur Pink Panthers, they played better than us. Both the sides were equal, somebody had to win the match," he said.
Bhaskaran did not utter a single word about the referees and instead chose to focus on his team. He reckons his team came out second best in crunch situations and as a result ended up losing the match.
"There were moments when we missed crucial tackles and when the raiders were not out despite which they were given out. Points that should have come to us eventually went to them. We were also unlucky with the bonus points," he said.
With this loss, U Mumba are all but out of the race for a playoff spot. They still have two games left to play and will need Haryana to lose both their matches to have a chance of securing a playoff berth. The chances are slim but expect Anup Kumar and co. to go all the way.