PKL 2019 | Naveen Kumar’s one year journey - from NYP to Dabang Delhi’s star raider

When it comes to players leaving a mark in PKL last season, we mostly talked about Siddharth Desai or Pawan Sehrawat. Desai, a 26-year-old making his debut in the league, took the world by storm by scoring Super 10s at a rate that we had only seen Pardeep Narwal do. This year, however, he has struggled to recreate the same form in Hyderabad and questions are now being asked about his actual quality. While it was him, and Pawan, that stoled the limelight, most people failed to notice one young guy who was making his debut in the season and played an instrumental role in guiding Delhi into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

In an exclusive interview, a delighted Naveen Kumar acknowledged that coach Krishan Kumar Hooda’s backing and the support of the team has helped him do well in the second consecutive season for the Delhi unit.

“As I was an NYP (New Young Player) last year, it was finalised in the pre-season that I will play for Delhi this year as well. I was really happy that the team trusted me enough and allow me to play and I felt really happy to be associated with Delhi again. All the senior and Indian players have been helping me a lot since last season.”

Knowing that he will be playing alongside almost the same set of players with whom he went on to the mat last year, Naveen was mentally prepared to give his best for the Delhi team again. Speaking more about his preparations for the seventh season, the Bhiwani lad said that he tried to eliminate the mistakes those were committed in the previous edition of the PKL.

“We have prepared really well. Our trainer made us do running, handwork and footwork. We also focused on last season’s mistakes and so evidently our team is doing well and playing like a unit and this is the result of all the hard work that we did,” explained the 19-year-old raider.

“I think about taking the team forward and in my mind, I think about where to get the point from and not while going for a raid. As this a team game you have to play for the team and when it comes to preparing for the season, a raider has to focus on fitness and you have to focus on improving your skills and you have to take care of what you eat and you to keep practising for the future.” 

The raiding duo of Chandran Ranjit and Naveen is doing wonders for the Delhi team and the side which have three senior defenders in the form of Joginder Narwal, Ravinder Pahal and Vishal Mane, depends on the two newcomers to bail them out of trouble through their raids. Naveen is has built up a great partnership with Ranjit who has turned out to be the second-best raider in the side.

“It (partnership with Ranjit) is going really well as we were together last season as well and we did a good job. We both understand each other in terms of what to do when. When we have to go for points or how many players are left or otherwise. Also, the coach keeps instructing and guiding us and we go according to that. Other senior players are also helping us in this. When he is out of the mat I help in his revival and he does the same with me and as Kabaddi is a tough game so we have to work with each other and only if everyone supports each other then the team will go forward,” said Naveen.

Now with someone like Siddharth Desai not doing that well and a raider like Nitin Tomar missing out on the first three legs of the tournament, the focus is on Naveen. People are talking about him and he is not just a New Young Player (NYP) from the Futures Programme, he is a star of the team. But, he is always shy of talking about his own performance and wants to keep contributing to the team. “They are good raiders (Siddharth Desai and Pawan Sehrawat) and had put up a solid performance in the previous season,” the raider mentioned. “Our team is also good for the tournament. The one who makes mistakes stay behind and from here on I will try to minimise the errors and take the team forward.”

“It’s a game so you lose some and you win some so we are going to keep playing the way we are currently playing. We will focus on working on the mistakes we have made and in the future try and rectify those and we will proceed in the campaign,” the youngster, who idolises Ajay Thakur, concluded.