PKL Season 6: Why did U Mumba lose to UP Yoddha in Eliminator 1?

Pro Kabaddi League Season 6 has been a tournament full of surprises that have left jaws dropping for many kabaddi fans. As kabaddi fans were recovering from Patna Pirates' failure to qualify for the playoffs, another shocking news hit them as U Mumba got defeated unexpectedly by UP Yoddha 29-34. As a result, U Mumba is no more in the title hunt as of now.

Siddharth Desai who captured the limelight throughout the tournament looked stale against the likes of Nitesh Kumar (8 tackle points) and Jeeva Kumar (5 tackle points). UP Yoddha had a clear mindset of going rampage on Siddharth Desai especially how Nitesh Kumar fared against him, keeping him out of court for almost 08:49 minutes which hit Mumba hard.

It felt like U Mumba were over-dependent on Siddharth Desai from the beginning itself. As they realized that UP Yoddha would target Siddharth no matter what, the Mumbai outfit decided to have Siddharth as the frontline raider. The Yoddhas chose to raid first in the toss which was a shocker itself as UP Yoddha strategized playing defensively

While UP Yoddha played consistently for the first 10 minutes, U Mumba got desperate to grab a lead in the first half itself. Surinder Singh who has performed marvellously for U Mumba gave away points to the opposition as he executed an advance tackle on Shrikant Jadhav in a do or die raid in the first quarter which wasn't required at all. He continued to do so in the very next tackle attempt, this time against Prashant Kumar Rai.

U Mumba had no answers for Nitesh Kumar

It was Nitesh 4-0 Siddharth at the end of the first half score which read (15-18). Knowing that UP would attack Siddharth Desai throughout the match, coach Gholamreza decided to have Siddharth with the frontline attack which didn't allow other raiders to understand the defence and steal some points off the covers or take bonuses under their watch.

Rohit Rana produced some high-quality dashes throughout especially the one in which he dragged Rishank Devadiga to the other side of the court. Mistakes like Fazel Atrachali stepping onto the lobby and Dharmaraj Cherelathan's sluggish ankle hold against Shrikant Jadhav widened the gap between the scores.

U Mumba's defence struggled to be consistent

Rohit Baliyan and Darshan Kadian struggled to get the revival for their team while Abhishek Singh and Abolfazl Maghsoudlu got introduced in the second half which was late for Mumba's offensive gameplan. Maybe a switch earlier in the first half would have made the difference for U Mumba.

Fazel Atrachali targeted Shrikant Jadhav well with his double ankle hold and back holds which kept Mumba in the hunt. However, lack of integration in the defensive department with the lack of strategy in the raiding is the main reason why U Mumba didn't walk out as winners.

However, with the overall performance of U Mumba in the group stages in Season 6, their fans should be extremely happy about having a quality raider like Siddharth Desai and a quality leader in Fazel Atrachali. UP Yoddha, though, integrated their plans and went successfully with it both in offence and defence.