Bulls defence lets down the high-flying Sehrawat

Bengaluru Bulls may have missed a trick by naming ace raider Pawan Sehrawat as captain for Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) season seven instead of a specialist defender. Many team managements gave the leadership responsibility to an ace catcher to control the team during ups and downs in match situations.

The logic is about the probability of defenders lasting a longer duration on the mat, unlike raiders who can get dismissed after going on a raid. Sehrawat kept earning raid points, but the defence as a unit did not match their captain’s individual effort.

Sehrawat could not control his anger at the performance of the Bulls defensive unit, losing the semfinal against Dabang Delhi’s raiding pack in the first half at the EKA Arena TransStadia.

“I have always tried to drive home a message that I am not playing alone, we are in this as a team.”

He did more than his part, top-scoring with 18 points (20 raids and seven bonus points), but with catchers unable to combine, PKL’s standout raider ended on the losing side of a 44-38 scoreline.

He added: “I did not see my team compete (to win). The effort from defence was missing, you don’t win games from Super Tackles. They (Delhi) did not do any third raids, we just stood and watched them earn points,” said Sehrawat, the No. 1 league raid points earner (339 from 24 matches) and topper in total points list (353) this season.

Among Bulls defenders, Mahendra Singh, as left corner, ranks 10th (61 tackle points from 21 appearances) so far.

Bulls, defending the title and one win away from a fourth final appearance, got all-out twice in the first-half. Attempts to pull off Super Tackles by the defence against raiders of Naveen Kumar and Chandran Ranjit’s calibre did not matter in the long run.

Sehrawat said: “We could have turned the game around with 10% effort from my team in the last four minutes. It is not realistic to expect effort throughout, but the last four minutes would have helped. I felt so angry at a point that I thought of defending also.”

The 2019 captain and 2018 season’s MVP praised the team showing till the semifinals and expressed dismay at the performance in a must-win game.

“It is not as if the defence is not good, we have quality but it was not visible on the mat. Our opponents played well. One should accept reality,” he said.

“Team work took us to the semifinal, we overcame tough matches to reach so far because someone would stand up to support my effort.”

Maybe a defender-captain would have instilled stability, like Delhi showed with Joginder Narwal leading from the back.

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