Gujarat Fortunegiants is feeling the heat having lost its first two home matches against Tamil Thalaivas and Telugu Titans. The PKL season 5 and 6 runner-up has now lost four matches in a row and it is desperate to stem the rot.
Giants with 18 points from seven matches is placed sixth in the 12-team league, and are confident of a turnaround to make the six-team play-offs. The local team has spent the last two days introspecting the reasons for their plight, especially some of the decisions it made while in action against the Thalaivas and Titans.
The team attempted to simulate assorted match situations at a practice session on Tuesday and worked out on the tactical aspects and skill.
Mistake
The giants coach Manpreet Singh admitted his team has made mistakes, but did not want to concede that his raiders, Sachin Tanwar in particular, have not been able to deliver the goods.
Rohit Gulia has impressed in patches and has a 48 per cent strike rate as a raider and 40 per cent in tackling. Tanwar’s strike rate is abysmally low 41%.
“The big difference this season has been the tackling success of most of the teams. They have prepared well to deal with the raiders. There are exceptions in Pawan Sherawat (Bengaluru Bulls) and Naveen Kumar (Dabang Delhi KC). We are planning for the next two matches against Bengal Warriors which has three raiders in Maninder Singh, Prapanjan and Mohammad Nabibakhsh.
Tactics can be planned only after seeing the first few minutes of the match.
Hopefully we will be able to rise to the occasion in the matches against Warriors and Jaipur Pink Panthers,’’ said Manpreet. The league will resume on Wednesday with a match between Haryana Steelers and UP Yoddha.
