After a well-deserved break, following the grueling Mumbai leg, which saw U Mumba perform creditably to win four out of six matches, the team will now take on Gujarat Fortunegiants on Wednesday in a key encounter between, arguably, two of the best teams so far in the 6th Vivo Pro Kabaddi League, in Ahmedabad.
U Mumba currently heads the group leaderboard with 56 points from 14 matches, followed by Gujarat Fortunegiants on 47 points, having played 3 matches less. Gujarat also leads the head to head record between the two 4-0, having prevailed over U Mumba by a narrow 38-36 margin when the two met previously this season. In a rare error by U Mumba, a single raid by Gujarat’s Mahendra Rajput yielded 7 points, which led to U Mumba losing the match.
However, that trend is set to be broken, going by the form U Mumba is currently in. Find of the season, Siddharth Desai is leading the Raider’s list with 131 points from 12 matches, while captain Fazel Atrachali is the top defender with 57 tackle points from 14 matches. With raiders Darshan Kadian, Abhishek and Iranian Abolfazl in good form and defenders Surinder and Dharmaraj along with all-rounder Vinod providing strong back up, U Mumba look prepared to put up a good showing when they take on the strong Gujarat side.
U Mumba’s Asian Games gold medal winning coach from Iran, Gholamreza Mazandarani, acknowledged that the Gujarat team is a balanced side and said, “They are a good team and the main reason for their good showing is that they managed to retain six players from last season, due to which they have good combinations.”
However, he added, “They have won eight matches, but two or three victories were very close. U Mumba is a big team and all the time we keep trying out new plans. Hopefully, this will be evident tomorrow.”
Commenting on U Mumba’s hat-trick of wins in the home leg, the coach said, “All teams love to continue winning and similarly we too try to win every time we step on to the mat.”
“But we are focused only on our plans and don’t think about the result.” said the coach while signing off.