He mulled dialing the sports ministry, writing to the Prime Minister, getting the Committee of Administrators (CoA) involved, buying time from the Asian Football Confederation.
He was desperate to pull out all the stops to see his players avoid the humiliation of returning from Tashkent without playing, barely hours after arriving there as a team about to become the first club to represent India in AFC Women's Club Championship.
After giving it much thought, Praveen decided, instead of him dialing New Delhi from Kerala, it will be the team that should make the call, from the Uzbekistan capital to the sports ministry here.
The team manager spoke as the players stood beside as a tight-knit unit adamant on not giving up hope in a game they were not expecting to be part of.