Misc. news about Indian hockey

[ssp]

Batra is the new FIH president. I didn't expect this as the Europeans intended to vote for the Irish candidate, but looks like the Asians were united (for once) and he has managed to get enough votes.
That is good news and I hope he uses this opportunity to help improve hockey standards in all the poorer countries and reduce the dominance of the Europeans!

[vishalg]

Batra is the new FIH president. I didn't expect this as the Europeans intended to vote for the Irish candidate, but looks like the Asians were united (for once) and he has managed to get enough votes.
That is good news and I hope he uses this opportunity to help improve hockey standards in all the poorer countries and reduce the dominance of the Europeans!

if he isn't good for Indian hockey how can he be good for world hockey.

[sameerph]

Whatever his merits/demerits, he seems to be one of the few Indians to head to an international sporting association which is good. Hope something good comes out for us in this.

[ssp]

if he isn't good for Indian hockey how can he be good for world hockey.

For a start, he will have to leave his position as head of HI . Let's hope that his replacement keeps out of selection matters (Gurbaj etc) or coaches (Walsh) and improves our domestic hockey scene and spends more money and effort on the women.

Regarding international hockey, there has been too much bias towards the richer (European and Oceanic) nations for decades. I'd like to see rules that help teams that are not so physically powerful, reduce the impact of PCs, improve safety and generally make the game more attractive to watch.

[ssp]

We lost 3-2 to Australia in the first match of a four nation tournament. I watched the last 10 mins when we put a fair it of pressure on the hosts and pulled a goal back, but I also saw the usual stuff- awful umpiring, Uthappa wasting good opportunities, Satbir lose the ball and do nothing creative, Raghunath almost gifting away a goal.
We play Malaysia tomorrow followed by NZ. 4 points from those 2 matches should be enough to get into the final. Sounds easy, but we reserve our worst against NZ.

[ssp]

Watching our game against Malaysia. We are 1-1 in Q3, after having controlled most of the game. Raghunath gave away a PC with an awful tackle. Unfortunately, we can't carry both Rupinder Pal and Rsghunath. The latter has been too slack in his play.It seems our players almost relax against teams like Malaysia.

Fortunately, we take the lead with our first PC. We need a 2 goal cushion because there is going to be some crazy stuff from our defenders at some point. Into Q4 now. Let's hope for a quality 15 mins.

Oh dear, we miss a great chance and then Satbir does the expected crazy stuff, so we have to defend a PC, and another. There we go...2-2. Usual idiotic gifts given away by the same culprits. The guys I have criticised always manage to screw up. We could lose this because Malaysia don't need to do much and a PC will be gifted to them.

Raghnunath has been atrocious today. Just walking around and giving the ball away most of the time. He looks even slower than normal. Along with Satbir, Akashdeep and Uthappa, we have too many weak players on the pitch most of the time.

6 mins left and some magic from Nikkin and we take the lead. Can we play sensibly now? I'd take Raghunath off to avoid and PC gifts. 4-2 now and Akashdeep scores a beauty.

Malaysia should have had no opportunities to get back into this match, but 2 gifted PCs gave us a much harder game than it should have been. Still, well done to the team to keep attacking at the end and get the win. We play NZ next and that will be a tougher match so we will need to cut down on the silly errors and raise the intensity.

[jayakris]

That is nice to get a nice 2-goal lead cushion late in the game. A one goal lead is never enough for us.
Okay, we beat Malaysia 4-2.

[ssp]

Watching our game v NZL. We were leading 1-0 going into the Q4 and sure enough we concede . just knew we wouldn't be able to keep a clean sheet. A draw is enough, but they way we have dominated this match we should have secured a 2-3 goal lead....and NOOOO, while I type this, we go behind 2-1.
That's it, I can't see us coming back from this. We only needed to keep our lead for another 5 mins and NZL would have taken their keeper off. We are now playing crap. Can't keep the ball and NZL look like scoring with every attack.
6 mins left and we don't look like creating anything as NZL have the ball most of the time. Some more rubbish at the back and we gift away a PC. Results in another PC (umpire called this wrong). Now it is 3-1 ...don't know why, but each and every player has been poor. Can't pass, can't trap, can't tackle, can't win any 60/40 balls let alone 50/50 ones.
3 mins left. 3-2 now. We have taken our keeper off, so predict 4-2 rather than us getting an unlikely equaliser. Umpiring is terrible- missed a PC for us. 2 mins left.
Now we have a goal disallowed. Game is gone. Mad 5-10 mins have cost us yet another defeat to NZL. Livid with this display. We have a last second PC. No, we fail to convert.
Even the commentators were saying have 2 sloths cost us as the defence was utterly cr*p when Birendra went off. Why can't the selectors see the folly of selecting both Rupinder Pal and Raghunath? The weaker players are costing us games time and again. Uthappa, Akashdeep and Satbir kept losing the ball or couldn't even stop the ball or pass 10m.

[sameerph]

We beat Malaysia 4-1 in the third place playoff. Good to see a comfortable win but still loss against NZ only due to one bad quarter hurts.

[ssp]

Good win today, but that last quarter collapse against NZL is all too familiar. Australia won the tournament with a 3-1 win over NZL in the final. Now we move onto a 3 test series against Australia. As I said earlier, the selectors should have tried 2-3 new players as this trip isn't really that important (no WR points) and I bet the outcome would have been the same!

We badly need to strengthen the defence (more agility and discipline) and also need more creativity near the opposition D. Ideally we need players who can eliminate a defender to set up an incisive pass or take a shot at goal. Gurbaj is excellent at this and Dharamvir (after a poor couple of years) was useful too.

In attack, Mohammed Amir Khan will most likely make way for Ramandeep. He has looked tentative, Affan Yousseff probably hasn't done enough to keep his place yet. Let's hope both of these put up much better displays in the test series.

[ssp]

Interesting comments by the commentators- especially Simon Orchard, who correctly pointed out the habit of India's (& Malaysia and other Asian teams) defenders of ball watching and lacking the desire to jump in front of the attackers in our own circle. We could prevent several goal scoring chances by being more agile and disciplined about getting in front of the opposition forward.

He also pointed out the lack of pace when Raghunath and Rupinder Pal are in central defence.

The other issue is the way our forwards run off the ball. Whenever Australia attack, their forwards will run intelligently to create passing opportunities or generally open up spaces (one will go to the base line, another will run away diagonally from the ball carrier etc), where as our guys tend to crowd into spaces so that we either pass straight on to a defender's stick or have to dribble our way (skills which we lack nowadays) into a scoring position. That is why Australia will get many more shots at goal & PCs (as well as actual goals) from a similar number of circle entries.

The commentators also quoted the coach's (Van Gent) view about lack of intensity for the full 60 mins & inexplicable casual play when leading 1-0. Usually, we will serve up a horrible quarter in almost every game against any level of opposition.

I watched Akashdeep's play and have to admit he wasn't too bad in front of goal, but still loses the ball or passes poorly because of lazy basic skills (being too upright and keeping his stick too far away from the ball).

[ssp]

We have just won the 1st of the 2 test matches against Australia. Finished 3-2 after we took a 2-0 lead. Well done to the team and let's hope for a good end to the year with a positive result in the final match as well.

[ssp]

Lost the 2nd test 4-3, despite leading 3 times. Sort of expected performance. Still better than the usual thrashings that we get from Australia.

[arjun2761]

So we are 1-2 in 3 matches against Australia (on their home fields) with all being 1 goal games. Plus 2 clear wins against Malaysia. These are positive results.

The loss to NZ is probably our most negative result on the tour. If we can win/tie the last match with Australia, will call the tour a promising effort overall.

[sameerph]

I think there is no third match in the series. This was the last match. Overall decent performance I would say.