Sunday’s Pro Kabadd League 8 game between Gujarat Giants and Bengaluru Bulls was a close contest as it looked as if the Bulls could get a significant lead in the dying stages of the game by inflicting an all out. But an error by the Bulls defence meant that the Giants secured a 36-38 win.
This was the Giants third win in their last four games. Before beating the Bulls, they were thrashed 23-43 at the hands of Patna Pirates on February 4. In his post-match interview after the victory over BB, coach Manpreet Singh stated that he was satisfied with the result.
“We are happy with this result. It was a close game, this win would give a lot of confidence to the team. The last game we lost, it was by a huge margin, we don’t want to play such one-sided matches, the audience too doesn’t like to see matches,”
Singh said in an interaction with the media, as per Sportskeeda.
The Giants are still at the ninth position in the table. They have 43 points from 16 games right now, with six more fixtures left to play.
“Today our strategy worked, we knew that the Bulls won’t make any empty raids so our defence was prepared and they did advance tackles, we gave away some points in the process but we got points as well. I think we did well there,”
the head coach added.
Manpreet also said that the Giants still have a good chance of qualifying for the playoff stage. He admitted that the job is difficult but assured that the team won’t give up.
Giants know that they have to win at least five out of the remaining six games to get into the playoffs, and they need to be at their absolute best in all departments to make that happen.
Manpreet’s optimism of his team’s chances is not ill-informed. Only the Patna Pirates and Dabang Delhi have secured playoff spots till now and the Telugu Titans are out of contention. Apart from them, all the remaining nine teams are still in contention for a playoff berth.
