Tamil skipper Ajay Thakur picked up a point in the buzzer raid as both sides were locked at 28 each after regulation time. Courtesy the result at the Pataliputra Indoor Stadium in Patna on Wednesday, the teams took home three points each. “We look at it positively. Against a very strong side, we scored a lot of points in the second half. UP was playing a very balanced game, we kept up with it and competed well. It is a plus point and we will take that into our next duel,” said Bhaskaran.

Ajay felt the unsuccessful tackle on Rishank Devadiga in the penultimate raid proved costly. In that ‘Do-or-Die’ raid, Shabeer Bappu looked to pin Rishank down, but was sent to the bench as the score read 28-27 in UP’s favour. “Had we not made a slight error in defence towards the end, we would have won. A successful tackle there would have reduced the pressure,” stated Ajay.

The Thalaivas raiders did not have a great outing, combining for just 13 points. The captain accepted that the offensive department did make some mistakes during the course of the 40 minutes. “Teams do a lot of video analysis these days. We do play with a detailed plan, but we committed some errors,” explained the skipper.