By Rajendra Prasad Mohapatra
Bhubaneswar, Dec 8: Their morale low after two consecutive losses, Indian men’s hockey team will have to plug the holes and produce a miraculous performance to tame World Cup silver medallist, the Netherlands in their third and final Pool B match of the Champions Trophy, here Tuesday.
The Indians had a horrible start to the elite eight-nation tournament as after losing 0-1 to Olympic Champions Germany in their first pool game, the Sardar Singh-led side squandered their hard-earned lead on two occasions to slump to a 2-4 defeat against Argentina at the Kalinga Stadium Monday. India are languishing at the bottom of Pool B and are most likely to face the Pool A winners England in the quarterfinals.
In both the games, the Indian players looked out of sorts in front of the opposition ‘D’. They managed to take the ball near the circle on many occasions but instead of trying to get in, they depended more on hits from outside hoping for somebody to get a deflection. India have three specialist drag flickers – VR Ragunath, Rupinder Pal Singh and Gurjinder Singh in the team but they are failing to earn too many penalty corners because of their habit of playing long balls instead of trying to work it inside the opposition circle.
Not just the defence, India’s midfield too failed to perform to the best of their abilities in the last two matches. Akashdeep Singh and young Lalit Upadhyay looked promising upfront but Ramandeep Singh completely looked a pale shadow of himself. And it is high time high performance director Roelant Oltmans, who is in charge of the team following Walsh’s exit, addresses these issues quickly, otherwise it definitely is heading towards a disappointing end to what has been a good year for Indian hockey.
The Oranjes, on the other hand, are brimming with confidence with two wins from as many games .