LSE FRIENDLIES (21/1)
- Oishik Raha
- Jan 29, 2017
- 3 min read
INTENSE MATCHES FROM BOTH MEN AND WOMEN
As always with LSE, we were in for a series of thrilling matches. The women were ready to exact their revenge after London Zone and play the first ever inter-women's knockout match on the university kabaddi circuit. Both sets of men's teams were severely depleted (well at least, the first teams; the seconds still had the hunger for victory that they had experienced in London Zone), but the quality of kabaddi was set to be high.
Women's Report
Winning on Saturday against LSE 34 - 27 we made a good comeback from London Zone. The girls have proved that training hard pays off and everyone showed great improvement.
The match started off slow with LSE's Pooja and Thalya making some risky tackles. However we picked up on this and capitalised on the fact that they were using their covers to come all the way around and make a tackle. This meant that Atisha and Shivani made some great raids by seeing the tackle coming and ensuring they got out. We also played our first ever knockout and it was a good learning experience. Even though the team was down to 3 players, Bhagyata made an assist to Shivani on a spectacular tackle. They managed to tackle Pooja while I was still recovering from being pushed through the door.
We will be working on knockout and hope to beat LSE again at nationals.
Anisha (Womens Captain)
Men's 2nd Team Report
The Imperial Seconds played two games in total against LSE. The first game begun with a shaky and nervy performance culminating in an early all out for Imperial. There were defensive lapses as well as LSE capitalising on some pressured raiding. The team steadied after the "all out" and quickly replied with an all out in response. Imperial lead for some of the second half with some excellent raiding from Vinay Maniam and great defensive performances from Dan George and Kisan Sockalingam. In the end LSE narrowly won with the final score being 22-20.
In the second game Imperial threatened to develop an early deficit as in the previous game with some wild tackling. Some key tackles and incisive raid points from the likes of Parm Singh and Muhesh Taheem, Imperial were able to achieve an early "all out". Imperial were able to maintain this lead throughout the game with a comfortable final score line of 23-11.
Muhesh (Men's 2nd Team Captain)
Men's 1st Team Report
In classic Imperial fashion, we started the first game slowly, amping up the pace with strong raids from Karmanya and Sanjay. The defence was equally effective with some decisive tackles from Rikeen and Riccardo in what was a difficult (narrow) 6m pitch. However, the proceedings were cut short when 2 injuries took out Rikeen's foot and Sanjay's kneecap to end the game early at a score of 15-7.
The numbers were made up when Richard and Parm stepped up to the plate. Things were looking okay until star raider Karmanya lost his rhythm in the raid and a bad tackle later, we were really struggling for points. Our raiders were finding it difficult to pick up the touch points and the bonuses weren't coming our way. Luckily, an unusual raiding performance from captain, Oishik, at the end secured the match as a draw (11-11) with a bonus and touch in the dying seconds of the match.
Oishik (Men's 1st Team Captain)
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