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Team and Schedule of 2012 Azlan Shah cup has been released.

Teams:

Great Britain
Korea
New Zealand
Pakistan
Argentina
India
Malaysia

THURSDAY, 24 MAY 2012

1 1605 Pakistan vs Argentina
2 1805 New Zealand vs India
3 2005 Korea vs Malaysia

FRIDAY, 25 MAY 2012

4 1605 New Zealand vs Argentina
5 1805 Great Britain vs Malaysia
6 2005 Korea vs India

SATURDAY, 26 MAY 2012
REST

SUNDAY, 27 MAY 2012

7 1605 New Zealand vs Pakistan
8 1805 Korea vs Argentina
9 2005 Great Britain vs India

MONDAY, 28 MAY 2012

10 1605 Korea vs Pakistan
11 1805 Great Britain vs Argentina
12 2005 India vs Malaysia

TUESDAY, 29 MAY 2012
REST

WEDNESDAY, 30 MAY 2012

13 1605 Argentina vs India
14 1805 Great Britain vs New Zealand
15 2005 Pakistan vs Malaysia

THURSDAY, 31 MAY 2012

16 1605 Great Britain vs Korea
17 1805 Pakistan vs India
18 2005 New Zealand vs Malaysia

FRIDAY, 1 JUNE 2012
REST

SATURDAY, 2 JUNE 2012

19 1605 Korea vs New Zealand
20 1805 Great Britain vs Pakistan
21 2005 Argentina vs Malaysia

SUNDAY, 3 JUNE 2012

22 1535 5th Placing vs 6th placing
23 1805 3rd Placing vs 4th Placing
24 2035 1st Placing vs 2nd Placing

-Ankit

This year, the tournament is being played in Ipoh, in Malaysia's northern state of Perak. Ipoh has a large Indian population, so there should be good support for the India side.

Full strength Indian team for this year's Azlan Shah

Rupinderpal Singh comes in place of Ignace Tirkey in defence, while Dharamvir Singh replaces Chinglensana Singh upfront.

India will open their campaign against New Zealand on 24 May to be followed with matches against Korea, Great Britain, Malaysia, Argentina and Pakistan.

The team is as under-

Goalkeepers
1. Bharat Chetri (Captain),2. Sreejesh PR

Defenders
3. Sandeep Singh, 4. VR Raghunath , 5. Rupinderpal Singh

Midfielders
6. Birendra Lakra, 7. Sardar Singh (Vice- Captain), 8. Manpreet Singh, 9. Gurbaj Singh, 10. Kothajit Singh Khadangbam,

Forwards
11. SV Sunil, 12. Dharamvir Singh, 13. Sarvanjit Singh, 14. Gurwinder Singh Chandi, 15. Shivendra Singh, 16. Danish Mujtaba, 17. S.K Uthappa
18. Tushar Khandker

Standbys
1. PT Rao (GK), 2. Harbir Singh (Defender), 3. Pardeep Mor (Midfielder), 4. Pradhan Somanna (Forward)

No Yuvraj Walmiki in the squad for Azlan Shah too. Interesting !

-Ankit

I think Yuvraj Walmiki has been injured recently. I know he scored a crucial goal in the Asian CT final last year, but I haven't been too impressed with his displays since then. He misses too many chances and his trapping in the D or on the run is inconsistent (like many Indian players). I was more impressed with his younger brother, Devinder, who had some good games in the WSH.

In fact, some of the discards looked pretty good. I'm thinking of: Lalit Upadhyay, Roshan Minz, Bharat Chikkara (I don't know why any of these 3 is not in the national squad), Damandeep, Vikas Pillay, Prabodh Tirkey, Ajmer Singh & even Adam Sinclair.

Some of the older ones looked overweight: Sandeep Michael, Gagan Ajit, Inderjit Chadha, Len Aiyappa and Dhanraj Pillay

Article describing what kind of preparation goes toward preparation for Olympic.

Hockey India to send its first team for Azlan event

...apparently changed its mind after realizing that the matches would be played on blue turf similar to the one being used at the London Olympics.

The pitch is smooth and true or wobbly depending on which direction the ball travels. A few Australian coaches are even thinking of shifting to the left of the goal for penalty corners if the situation demands,"

Nobbs told

In the event, the think-tank feels that the team needs to spend more time on the blue pitch. "We are playing three games in London during the Olympic Test event. We will get to play more at Azlan Shah before moving to Santander in Spain in July. Practice and games on these blue pitches with yellow balls will be of big help to us,"

Nobbs said.

-Ankit

Tournament begins today with our match against New Zeland.

This is the preview article from Hindu -

A final rehearsal before Olympics

Live commentary on Stick2hockey website. Guess what....India concedes in 40 secs! Sandeep continues to show his ineptitude. He costs us a goal or two per match per game. The rest is left to the keepers and Ragunath.

Familiar story so far at half time. 2-1 down. PCs conceded 4, won ZERO. If we continue to concede so many PCs, we have to expect goals. At the other end, we are winning nothing. I suspect it is because we simply whack the ball in to the D and hope for the best.Lots of fumbles, mis traps. We seem to be carrying 4 players who are not up to international standard- Sandeep, Ragunath, Tushar and Yuvraj.

Yes, we r living on the edge ... Shivender Singh scored equalizer in 6th minute but after that we conceded 5 penalty corners and the black sticks scored on 5th before half-time to lead 2-1.

In the second half Raghunath wasted 2 penalty corners and we conceded another ... The black sticks still leading 2-1 after 46 mins.

Azlan Shah Cup- India-NZ

We are getting thrashed 4-1 by NZ with 8 minutes to go.

Edit 1: It is 5-1 in the 65th minute from PC conversion.

Going from bad to worse. 3-1 down - seems like Ragunath is doing his best to 'emulate' Sandeep's level of ineptitude. 7 PCs conceded. Looks like we are playing like headless chicken. Attack in a predictable way and leave the back door open or if there is no danger actually give away goals. Crass stupidity.
Not looking good. Statistics will no doubt show fewer shots at goal, fewer circle penetrations and fewer PCs gained (by a big margin). NZ are playing clever hockey. They make sure their attacks yield something. We just like to fumble/ mis trap or just whack into the D. Amateurish nonsense.
Oh..its now 4-1
Could we be in for repeat of last year's 7-3 thrashing from the Kiwis. Still 8 mins to go to concede 2-3 yet.
Shockingly sh*t stuff.arrrggh

Getting there...5-1 now with 2 mins. 8 PCs conceded. Awful rubbish. Wonder what Nobbs and the players will say to explain such a pathetic result.
We are going to be hammered in every match at the Olympics. The days when we expected to beat NZL are gone. I can't remember when we last beat them in a meaningful match.

According to stick2hockey's commentary, we looked lethargic and unfit!! What the hell is going on...Nobbs is doing a great impression of Harendra, Rajinder, Carvalho and dozens of other useless idiots that have tried and failed miserably. Our players are not good enough and we are just hoping for miracles.

5-1 is a pathetic result. Where do we go from here. Probably onto a series of defeats here and probably 11-12 place play off at the Olympics.

So many of our players are an embarrassment. Sandeep, Ragunath, Tushar & Yuvraj are regulars at playing poorly, yet they ALWAYS get selected. We can add Birendra and Chettri to this list. Sarvanjit can be good one day and then inexplicable poor the next day. Same with Danish Mujtaba. What is the point of having 2 drag flickers on the pitch, when we are going to win 2 PCs in the entire game or sometimes ZERO PCs. We won 5-6 PCs in the entire 4 nation tournament in London earlier this month. We gave away 8 in one match here!
Since the Oly qualifier win against France, we have lost 5 games in a row. Our defending looks as bad as ever. I'm afraid Nobbs is not really shaping up as anything special.

Great. Now what do we do? Shold I get back to dropping the benefit of doubt and support that I have been giving for Nobbs for months now, since my disagreement with the hiring of him because of a lack of resume? I guess I will give him some more time, as I have no choice. The defense seem not to have improved at all and the so-called "we will play offense to our traditional strengths and flair" business is still nothing but bullcrap, as I had thought for 36 years?

Jay

Horrible display on the field ... Our players were pathetic and lethargic in this match.

Livid Michael Nobbs blasts 'inept' team

Well, where do we start? We were pathetic, everything we talked about and practised we decided to forget and go back to our old style of play," thundered Nobbs when asked about the margin of defeat. The defence was awful. I have repeatedly asked my defenders to mark from the front. In the first minute of the game, Sandeep mis-trapped a 40m pass aimed at the forward and they scored. It went downhill from there. One minute from half-time, Rupinderpal made a silly tackle which he didn't need to and they scored. 2-1 down at half-time,"

he said.

We are not that good yet. We have to accept responsibility for our performance and not look for excuses. This tour is also about selection for the Olympic team. We can only have 16 and performances here will certainly have a bearing on who goes and who doesn't. If we are going to get a top six finish at the Olympics then we need a much better performance for the rest of this tour."

-Ankit

OK, coach, I like that. I am again giving you some benefit of doubt. I like your blasting the payers and speaking the truth. Have rarely seen that from our idiot coaches. You still have to find a way to produce though.

Jay