Misc. news about Indian hockey

[ssp]

Interesting article on Gurbaj:
http://hockeypassion.in/has-gurbaj-paid ... ing-court/

I don't think we will see Gurbaj back in the team.....ever. HI have something against this guy and we may ever know the truth.

[sameerph]

We are a couple of places up to be ranked 6th in the latest FIH mens rankings. I guess this may be our highest ranking for a while. A bit surprising since we have struggled to get into top 6 in any of the major events in last few years.

[ssp]

yes, surprised to see us up to 6th. This is more to others regressing. NZ, Korea, Spain and Pakistan are not at their previous levels of performance. South Korea and Spain are struggling financially. Pakistan is in a mess because of money and pathetic administration (& corruption- maybe even worse than us).
The next 3 teams-Argentina, England/GB & Belgium- could be within our sights but we play really badly against them. It would be great to beat these 3 teams on a regular basis. I think we could be competitive at least if we select the right players and give Oltmans (or his replacement) a chance to coach us properly.
Instead we select non performers and keep out the likes of Gurbaj, Affan Yousef, Gurinder and a few of the U21s.

[ssp]

Actually, I got Belgium's placing wrong. They are 7th! That's nonsense. They are definitely better than us.

We are now looking at a really tough group in Rio. If there is no movement between now and Rio, we will be facing Holland, Germany & Belgium! We will lose to all 3, so no chance of a semi final. However, if we displace Argentina, we will go into the other group where the toughest teams will be Australia and England. I suspect Spain and New Zealand (if South Africa decide not to send their team) will also end up in this group.

I really hope we can finish ahead of Argentina at the HWL finals. I can't remember when we last beat Argentina. Perhaps at the Azlan Shah tournament around 7-8 years ago? Another shameful statistic.

[ssp]

1st test against Australia ended up 2-2. Star Sports are showing this series.

On the face of it, a good result, but Australia were resting 2-3 key players and we had more duds than usual!

Negatives: some old habits will just not go away. We seemed to panic towards the end and gave away crucial PCs which resulted in the Australian equaliser in the 59th min. We can not hope to win matches like his when we are carrying so many weak players. The usual culprits lost possession repeatedly (often when under no pressure)- Danish, Chinglensana, Akashdeep and today, Talwinder joined this group. The latter 2 produced nothing inside the D and had we possessed a quality forward, a couple of the half chances would have been converted. There are still too many unforced errors (Manpreet's mistake led to the 1st Aussie goal) and crazy decisions all over the pitch when just holding the ball would be the correct thing to do.

Positives: We denied easy passes into our D and generally marked quite well. Possession stats and PCs were in our favour and we managed 13-21 in circle penetrations. Usually this ratio is 1:3 in Australia's favour

Still, I was fearing a 4-5 goal mauling. Maybe Australia will hand that out in the remaining 2 tests or the HWL

[jaydeep]

In the second test we lose 1-2 against Aussies ... We were leading 1-0 till end of 3rd quarter ... In the 4th quarter Aussie scored 2 goals in 2 minutes in beginning and then they defended well for a win ... Other hand we played very reckless / careless game with unnecessarily dangerous tackles which resulted in 2 yellow cards in the 4th quarter.

[ssp]

Australia deservedly beat us today. They were just that bit better over the 4 quarters, where as we fell away in the 4th quarter and to a lesser extent in the 3rd quarter.

The stats showed the usual Aussie domination on circle penetration (26:9- roughly 3:1 ratio). Possession was not so bad but we didn't win any PCs and gave away 2. On another day those 26 circle penetrations would have seen us concede 2-3 more goals.

Overall, much more competitive than I expected. We seemed pretty good in the 1st two quarters and made the Aussies look 'human' with our marking and hassling.

What really hurt us today were the weaklings- Talwinder (zero contribution and gave the ball away every time), Akashdeep (made nothing of 3-4 promising positions in the D & lost the ball 90% of the time), Danish (lost possession almost every time and at fault for the 2nd Aussie goal) and Chinglensana (only lost the ball 50% of the time, which is way better than normal).

Sunil just needs to improve his composure and decision making, as does Ramandeep. With better quality forwards (and clever play in 'manufacturing PCs) our circle penetrations and PC count would be a lot better. That can be the difference between narrow defeats and vital points in a tough competition.

Positives: I like Mohammed Amir Khan and Devendar Walmiki. There were fewer turnovers near our own D (although Rupinder made some crazy and needless dribbles in dangerous areas). Dharamvir had really good game and Jasjeet did well defensively.

I still think we would lose to a full strength Aussie team (and 'white' umpires!!) by at least 3 goals, but we don't look like meek rabbits now!!

[jaydeep]

And this time Aussie behave Indians way as they conceded goal when 9 seconds were remaining, Akashdeep was scorer .. We won the match 3-2.
In this match every time we took lead but Aussie scored due to our poor defending or losing possession.

In this match also Aussie side outnumbered us in every department, check (read it as India and Australia)
Shots on goal - 8 and 12 , Circle penetration - 14 and 26, Possessions - 43% and 57%, Penalty corners - 2 and 5

Interestingly we converted our both penalty corners and saved all five,

After test series end tied at 1-all and six goals -all, result decided on penalty shoot-out ... Aussie converted 2 from first 3 chances ... We missed first 2 chances by Sardar and Akashdeep ... We received penalty on 3rd and Rupinder converted it ... Birendra Lakra converted fourth after Sreejesh saved fourth ... On the fifth Aussie scored and again Aussie goal-keeper made error and gave Indians another penalty but this time Raghunath missed that chance ... So we lose series on penalty shoot-out 2-3.

[PKBasu]

Dare I say it? Our hockey seems to be looking up (at least a bit) despite the horrendous administrators! Being competitive against Australia at hockey is something we have never been since 1982 -- so that itself is serious progress!

[sameerph]

I watched most of today's match (except shootout) and Oltmans seems to have brought out some discipline and confidence back in our game. Still not at the same level as under Walsh but much better in the intervening period.

As SSP has said, some of the inconsistent ( and some outright bad) performers still remain and untill they are weeded out overall team performance will be up and down. For instance, in today's Raghunath and Rupinder scored 2 penalty corner goals but were responsible for making glaring defensive errors which led to 2 Aussie goals. Similarly, Akashdeep scored the third goad but had muffed a couple of earlier chances. Else, we would have won the third match convincingly.

Unfortunately, in our media the goalscorers are highlighted as match winners and no analysis is made of what went wrong ( as is usually done in cricket). Therefore, it will need courage for the coach to drop those like Raghunath, Rupinderpal or Akashdeep and bring in youngsters with more discipline.

I hope some of those from junior team are brought to the senior team at the earliest.

[ssp]

Wow, we beat Australia. What a pleasant surprise.

Agree with Sameer's comments; we are being held back by some weak players and until the selectors see the bigger picture and bring in better replacements, we will continue to lose matches that we should be drawing or even winning.

I appreciate that our 3 goalscorers will make the headlines, but over a period of time these guys continue to be exasperating. I good thing is followed by 2-3 crass errors. Akashdeep is too weak on the ball, but as he will not be dropped, we have to hope Oltmans and his staff work on his shortcomings. Trapping under pressure would be great start and then 'manufacturing' PCs when in the D would be next. Raghunath should not play in the defence. Rupinder needs to stop his crazy dribbles. Absolute madness they way he gifted the Aussies their 1st goal.

Australia are a brilliant side and we have to give credit to Oltmans and our team for fighting so well and being competitive in all 3 tests. I would go so far as saying that we looked the better team for significant parts in all 3 tests, although we struggled in the 3rd & 4th quarters in all 3 matches. Defending and marking is way better than usual and I often saw Aussie passes going harmlessly over our backline! Unforced errors were also massively reduced.

We can hope for more competitive performances if we can keep the coaching team intact and select the best players. The latter part is proving as hard as keeping hold of a decent coach. I have long moaned about Akashdeep, Danish, Raghunath, Chinglensana and Talwinder (Rupinder Pal can be brilliant sometimes and then really careless in the next minute). I'm not totally convinced by Jasjeet either. We have better replacements on the sidelines and in the U21s. Maybe, we should try 2-3 new faces in the Azlan Shah Cup next year.

[arjun2761]

Definitely happy to see that we were even with Australia in this "friendly" series against their top team.

However, would really like to see us repeat the performance in the matches that count for ranking points (WC, Olympics, Champions Cup, HWL etc.). Otherwise, we've seen in the past that sometimes the top teams experiment in the friendlies while we are playing to win and therefore the results are somewhat deceptive. Hopefully, that isn't the case here and that we play as well as the Aussies in the HWL finals.

[Qualia11]

Akashdeep somehow seems to be a very lucky player in the sense that whenever he scores India usually wins but the thing is that he rarely scores

[sameerph]

Akashdeep has now been nominated for rising star of the year award by FIH. ( as 1 of the 5 nominations). I wonder if FIH only saw some highlights where he scores a brilliant goal once in 10 matches and nominated him. But, with that we can forget about him being dropped from team till Rio at least.

[ssp]

I don't know how these nominations work, but wouldn't be surprised if their is a 'quota' or token Asian player to be on the list (with no chance of actually winning!). Unfortunately, apart from Sardar, Dhanraj Pillay & Mohammed Shahid, we haven't produced a really great players for decades. Pakistan have had several brilliant players, but not since Waseem Ahmed retired.

Rani Ramphal should have won the young women's award 2-3 years back & Sreejesh deserves to be on the list of best goalkeepers.

I've been a fierce critic of Akashdeep and don't feel he should be in the team until he improves his basic skills to international level. He fetched $84k for the 2016 HIL!! Why?? How?? Crazy stuff.

I'm happy to change my mind if he suddenly starts scoring lots of goals and earns PCs...or just stops the ball 70% of the time and passes accurately even 50% of the time

Dharamvir used to be as bad as Akashdeep, but he was improved in the past 18 months or so. Now he has an appalling game once in a while, rather than every time!