The inaugural Pro Wrestling League’s next pit stop is in the Silicon valley of India – Bangalore – that would provide the grounds for the culmination of the league stage matches.
The Bengaluru Yodhas look to bank on the home advantage and seal their semi-finals berth against a lacklustre Delhi Veer in the penultimate league stage bout today. We caught up with the Bengaluru Yodhas, who were busy preparing for the pivotal clash that is set to happen today.
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Narsingh Yadav – the captain of the franchise – when asked about the whole PWL experience, said that it has been a great one indeed and credited his talented teammates for keeping up the high spirits.
The Commonwealth gold medallist highlighted the impact of the tournament on the Olympics and said, “This tournament has been good preparation for the Olympics and also to keep me fit during the off season.”
“It’s good that there is a tournament right now because it gives us good preparation for the Olympics. We needed a competition right now and it’s good that the PWL came around right now,” Kumar said.
Assessing the performance of his team up until now, Narsingh was optimistic about cracking the semi-finals and said,” The Yodhas have been performing really well and we are almost at the semis now. I feel very proud to be the captain for such a talented team.”
Bajrang Kumar too exhumed confidence when asked about his experience thus far and said,” I used to play in the 61kg category and I won in the 65 kg category in two bouts. And I played Yogeshwar also. We are in our home Bangalore and we are going to play well.”
The Asian Games silver medallist is looking forward to playing in front of a packed home crowd – something that the team has direly missed in the earlier bouts.
“It’s a good thing that we are playing in a home game. In the other places, there weren’t many fans of the Yodhas. But now when we play here in Bangalore, we will have good support,” Bajrang said.
Bengaluru Yodhas are currently fourth in the standings and would look to seal a spot in semi-finals when they take on a struggling Dilli Veer. If the Yodhas do steamroll past a hapless Delhi, they would finish in the top two of the league stage.
Kuldeep Singh is the coach of the team and the driving force behind their quest to win the inaugural edition of the one of a kind league. When asked whether he is worried as to who their opponent would be in the semi-finals, Singh stated that all the focus is on getting into the semi-finals first and not on the possible match-up down the line.
Reasserting the confidence in his team’ preparations, Singh said, “Once we reach there (semi-finals), we will plan our game strategy on whoever we have to face. Whichever team we have to face, we are ready.”
The Bengaluru Yodhas take on Dilli Veer tonight in Bangalore in their first home game and would be looking to send out a strong message to their opponents – who would be having a close eye on the match.
