Misc. news about Indian hockey

A forum to discuss Indian hockey and the disarray it is in despite the promising new professional PHL series.

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jayakris
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by jayakris »

PKBasu wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2018 12:07 amIndia-Japan hockey, of course, began at the 1932 Olympics with an 18-0 win for India :-) ! These days, it is rarer to see those scores, and 6-0 is terrific. (In 1932, only 3 teams participated in the Olympics, and Japan won the silver; the US won bronze, although it lost both its matches, including a 1-24 loss to India -- which made the US the first team to score a goal against India at the Olympics!!).
Wasn't that when India played an exhibition against the US women's hockey team somewhere, but apparently only using the left hands on the sticks, and still beat them by a big score. Or am I dreaming up this story?
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

We beat NZ 3-1 today with goals from Harmanpreet, Dilpreet and Mandeep. That is excellent. NZ ( especially at hime) is a formidable opponent as they showed when they beat Belgium earlier. To beat them 3-1 is really good.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

After a long wait, we have defeated a full strength NZ side.

Things went our way with an early goal and then when we were under some pressure at 2-1, Mandeep got a deflection.

We got some harsh umpiring decisions (including the NZ goal) and NZ missed a few good chances, but overall, we deserved to win because of some nice structure (at last we look decent in defence).

However, we need to sharpen up a lot against Belgium to have any chance of a result. There were too many sloppy errors and dangerous turnovers near our D. Rupinder Pal had one of his 'crazy dribbling' days. Birendra was tried in central midfield and I don't think that worked out too well. He looks slow and holds onto the ball too long.

Elsewhere, our midfielders lost the ball too often and Ramandeep had another poor game. Lalit too, didn't look convincing. Mandeep was better than usual, and the fact that he scored, probably means he will selected for the next 2 years! :frown: Satbir is a mystery to me. What is he doing in the squad?

On the positive side, Vivek and Dilpreet were again excellent. Heartening to see such talent emerging. Varun, Gurinder and Harmanpreet all played well too. Also encouraging to see Marijne's influence is a positive one so far. Let's hope he turns out to be much better than we could have hoped for.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

We lost 2-1 to Belgium in the final today. It was much tighter game than the pool game and it was pleasing to see the hard work put in buy our team.

Belgium just had that little bit more composure and made fewer mistakes with their passing. They just seemed to get through 3-4 of our players with a clever pass or stick skills. In contrast, our passing was often a bit rushed and wayward.

The umpiring was pathetic...as always. Every single 50/50 tackle (or even clean ones) was blown against, whilst clear foot infringements or pushes against us were missed. There were 3 bad tackles inside the Belgian 23m area where our players were actually pushed to the ground, yet the idiot umpires just gave a foul or simply waved play on! Our defenders were claiming that the 1st Belgian goal was scored via the attackers foot. This move also resulted from a foul that should have gone our way yet the Belgians were awarded the free hit and one pass into our D led to their goal.

On balance, Belgium played with more control, but we had some excellent moves too. We just couldn't find the last pass or finish as well as the opposition. Our 'weaklings' played to their usual form. Ramandeep and Satbir repeatedly lost the ball or got dispossessed every time. Mandeep scored one, but missed 3 excellent chances. It's not a surprise we lose games like this!

So we are closer to the top teams now than I can remember since the 1970s. We need to unearth 2-3 more quality players....but I can't see how we can sort out the umpiring. In matches like this one, we are always going to be handicapped by this bias.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

Yes, 1-2 loss against Belgium is not bad at all. I guess we will be even better when some of our missing players - SV Sunil, Gurjant,Kothajit, Sumit etc, come back. Except for 1-2 slots, I think we now have decent 15-16 players who can hold their own against top 4-5 teams in the world. I doubt we could have said this any time in the last 15-20 years.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by jayakris »

And it looks more and more like the new coach has certainly not messed things up, and perhaps has been doing a good job. First time in a long time (or ever!) that I remember ssp talking about any structure in our game. Especially on defense - and that is usually what good coaches do (and can do) first.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by jaydeep »

Yes, this is the first time we r experiencing positive vibes from SSP about Indian hockey ... I am really happy for the change.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Yes, our play is encouraging. We are still not at top 5 level, but are less likely to be thrashed or outclassed by the better teams. So far, Marijne is doing a good job. I like the way we are trying out new players, but desperately need to be ruthless with the weaker ones.

Fitness levels are impressive as is the effort put in by all the players to close down on the opposition. Defending starts with strikers closing down the opposition ball carrier in the opposition half. In the past, our players used to 'watch' the ball being passed through huge gaps in our midfield and every opposition move had 2-3 strikers in acres of space near our D against 2 of our sloths at the back. A goal or a PC was inevitable. Pakistan are playing like this now.

We are still making a lot of silly errors and tend to gift possession away with basic lack of skills or composure. Against the top teams, we won't get the ball back for several minutes and requires a lot of running to do so. PC conversions are poor with no variations being tried out and we still tend to whack aimlessly into the D too often.

However, there's always a possibility that the 'worm' will decide to remove Marijne for some crazy reason (like Walsh) and set us back 2-3 years again :-(
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

3-2 win over NZ in the 2nd 'round' of this tournament. Good performance and we deserved the win. We defended pretty well and moved the ball around quite nicely. Unforced errors were down a bit from previous matches.

Umpiring was pathetic yet again. Even the Asian umpire made some silly decisions but at least he carded Ingliss for a push on our defender. The other umpire was awful. Absolutely every decision was against us, yet he missed several fouls against us. It is tough to win matches with cr*p like this.

Vivek had another excellent game. Can't believe this guy is only 17. Dilpreet looks brilliant too.

Next match is against Belgium and I hope we can stop our depressing run of defeats against them. Today they beat the improving Japanese team 3-2.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

We have beaten Belgium 5-4 today. Very exciting game. We were a match for the Belgians throughout but were hampered by some dreadful umpiring which led to 2 of the Belgian goals.
Vivek was brilliant again as was Dilpreet. The commentators were impressed with our defending, even though we conceded 4. For a change, our PCs were a real threat. Rupinder Pal scored 2 beauties in the top corner.
So we won despite the umpiring and having 2-3 players who lost the ball almost every time. If we can get suitable replacements and keep up this kind of form and intensity in every match, we can start challenging the top teams at major tournaments.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by Saniapower »

good
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

Excellent win for us. This is one of the reports which also talks about the contribution of 17 year old Vivek Sagar Prasad-
Teenager Prasad's rapid development a big bonus for India

It is indeed a big bonus to get 2 young players - Vivek and Dilpreet outside our pool of junior world cup winning squad which itself had a lot of upcoming talent to draw from.

With this core and some of the good seniors - the future really looks bright as of now.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Scrappy 4-2 win over Japan. Japan were the better team from Q2 onwards and missed several great opportunities, including a PS. 2 late strikes gave us the win.

This was our worst showing on this trip. Dribbling needlessly, poor trapping and passing and generally lethargic showing from most of the team. Japan played really well and their forwards had better skills and speed than our players.In fact it was embarrassing to see how easily our players were eliminated by skill as well as being outpaced. If we play like this in the final, Belgium will hammer us.

Special mention for Mandeep. He did absolutely nothing all match. Lost possession every single time and gave away fouls. Soon as he gets the ball, I think his teammates should immediately start falling back to prepare for the inevitable opposition counter attack. ;)

Ramandeep has been poor too, but at least he scored an opportunistic goal from the top of the D. Satbir didn't play because I think he picked up an injury in the previous match. Birendra also looks too slow and is not the answer on the right flank. Manpreet seems to take on 2-3 players needlessly and often in dangerous positions. Rupinder Pal also tends to do this and often gives the ball away near our D.

On the positive side, we hung on when Japan were well on top and credit to Harjeet and Ramandeep to score those late goals. Vivek had another good game and Pathak looks good in goal.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

We lost to Belgium in a penalty shoot out after being tied 4-4 in regular time.

I would say pretty good tour for us overall. We beat New Zealand and Japan quite comfortably which is not that common these days and beat Belgium ( who are currently among top 3 teams in world) once and drew them in regular time in another match.

We are surely making progress upwards and our current ranking of #6 is a fair reflection of our current strength. Hope we can make a move towards top 4 soon.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

We are surely making progress upwards and our current ranking of #6 is a fair reflection of our current strength. Hope we can make a move towards top 4 soon.
Yes, agree that we are making progress under Marijne, although CWG and CT will give us a better indication of the coach's credentials. But so far, I'm pleased with his work so far.

We were fairly consistent throughout this tournament and pretty much matched Belgium in all 4 matches, although it was disappointing to lose yesterday. I haven't been able to see the match, but we led 4 times and each time conceded, including our 'famous' last minute panic!

We were hampered by the umpiring in most matches and of course, had 2-3 guys who were just not good enough. Without these 2 handicaps, we can actually go into matches against the top 5 teams expecting to draw or even win on merit :-)

The big positives were Dilpreet and Vivek. I also liked the performances put in by Varun and Gurinder.
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