Mumbai were 'under pressure' against well-prepared Gujarat

Gujarat Fortunegiants' latest rout of U Mumba was the direct result of the Maharashtra side playing under pressure due to the earlier two losses against them, reckons Gujarat coach Manpreet Singh.

Gujarat have clean-swept their three encounters against Mumbai in VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season 5 so far with their latest 45-23 victory registered on Wednesday at the Harivansh Tana Bhagat Indoor Stadium in Ranchi.

"The way the team played today showed teamwork," observed Singh, "We got a few straight days here to practise and that created a good combination and when you have two matches against the same team in the same leg, then you can prepare very well... and we had already won one match against them earlier here. So, it got a little easy to devise a strategy against U Mumba and to polish our players' skills."

U Mumbai first faced the Fortunegiants in Ahmedabad in August and lost by a whopping 18 points. The loss margin came down to 11 points in the opening fixture in Ranchi before ballooning back to 22 points in their latest meet. The two met for the second time in Ranchi as part of the rescheduling of Mumbai’s washed-out home fixture late in August.

"When a team loses both the matches against one team, then they come under a lot of pressure," surmised Singh. "And on top of that there's pressure on the players not to repeat their mistakes. If these things come to your mind and you keep thinking about them, then your performance goes down.

"U Mumba is a very good team, all their players are very skilled. But if you play any match to win, then there's a lot of pressure and mistakes happen. That's when the other team wins. I don't believe U Mumba made a lot of mistakes, rather my team played better."

Singh particularly lauded the efforts of Sachin and Chandran Ranjit, both of whom got a Super 10, and Mahendra Rajput, who supported both the defence and raiding very well. "Kabaddi is not a one-man game, it's a seven-man game. And the guys who are sitting on the bench, it's their game too. So I'm very happy," he concluded.