PVL: Calicut wins Kerala derby to stay in contention

Hyderabad: The Kerala derby at the Prime Volleyball League 2022 was a thriller as expected and the Calicut Heroes edged past their state counterpart Kochi Blue Spikers. (15-12, 15-9, 9-15, 9-15, 15-11).

With this win the Heroes keeps their hopes alive for a semi-final berth while Kochi can also go through if all calculation comes their way. For that Chennai must beat Bengaluru today otherwise all the three southern teams will be out of the competition. If Chennai wins, then they will finish with 4 points. Calicut will reach 6 points if they win against Hyderabad.

Kochi needs to win both their ties against the top standing Ahmedabad and Kolkata to stay in contention. A bonus point won against any of these oppositions to see them through. However, the highly inconsistent Kochi needs to come up to an entire change of game plan to accomplish that.

Ajithlal was named player of the match, though he was not in his prime form in this match. None of the Kochi players were able to perform above average to take their team home as Cody, Karthik and Erin didn't get enough good lifts to spike easily while Calicut Heroes attackers received relatively easy lifts to strike, especially for Abil Krishnan as he gets freebies at regular intervals.

In the Libero context, Calicut was way ahead of Kochi and that really made a big impct in the match. The biggest turnaround of the match happened in the second set. When Kochi was going smoothly as they led 9-7 at the break.

Astonishingly, they never scored again, while Calicut wins the next 8 points to take the second set. Kochi came back strongly and outplayed their opponent in the third and fourth set, and led halfway through the final set before it succumbed to pressure.

The Blue Spikers can only blame themselves for the position they are in at the moment, though they still have an outside chance of making it to the last four along with Calicut Heroes.