Hockey World League (Men's and Women's)

[arjun2761]

Pretty disappointing result! I think we make the HWL finals anyway as the hosts but losing to Malaysia is a pretty poor result...

[jaydeep]

Poor defending by Aakash in front of the goal while stopping penalty corners ... Too many missed chances by our forwards and Ramandeep missed the open goal in the last minute ... Indians had themselves to blame for this loss but a good result for Malaysian team ... These days we r regularly struggling against Malaysian side, maybe we r failing to adjust their defensive playing style with superb goalkeeping by Kumar ... By virtue of this win, Malaysia have qualified for next year's World Cup to be held in India, first time after 2002 WC.

[ssp]

I was at the stadium today and have to say we looked flat and didn't really create too many chances. Malaysia played very well and troubled us repeatedly with clever aerial passes.

As I mentioned before this tournament started, we have too many mediocre players. Too many times we just lost the ball due to poor trapping or sloppy passes and as a result created very few good chances. Our tackling was poor resulting in silly PCs. Malaysia played very well and I hope they can produce an even better performance in the semi final. Our forwards are just not good enough.

Where do we go from here? We seemed to reached a certain level and can't seem to go further. We can pass the ball around much better than before and are fitter and can hold our structure reasonably well, but seem to be miles behind the way the Dutch or Argentinians create chances.

Pakistan were appallingly poor. They refuse to mark at the back and hack at attackers at every opportunity. They looked as silly as Indian teams of the past. China competed well for about half their math against the Dutch, but were simply overwhelmed but the superb Dutch movement, skills and passing.

Depressing to say this, but Asian hockey is unlikely to challenge the top teams in the near future.

[indiansportsfan]

I wonder if the match was fixed. I think we have had a few such cases in the past against Malaysia. Since we are already through to the Finals, this result does no harm to us, while benefitting the Malaysian team enormously.

[PKBasu]

Disgusting to have lost to Malaysia, and even more so if the match was fixed.

[Prem]

I wonder if the match was fixed. I think we have had a few such cases in the past against Malaysia. Since we are already through to the Finals, this result does no harm to us, while benefitting the Malaysian team enormously.

Definitely possible as was probably the ICC Champions Trophy cricket final against Pak (with billions at stake in betting)...

[ssp]

It wasn't a fix. We were poor.

We were let down by the poor standard of play from 4/5 players. I have repeatedly complained about the incredible stupidity of our selections. After the Azlan Shah cup loss to Malaysia, I knew Affan Yusuf would be dropped and the players who cost us that game (Talwinder, Akashdeep and Mandeep) would keep their places and sure enough, let us down here too. These types of players are the next 'fix-able' obstacle in our progress. We have tried them for 3-4 years and that is long enough! They have cost us many crucial games in the past.

Tomorrow we play Pakistan again for 5-8th place play off. Meaningless game as we have under performed horribly. Oltmans was talking about 2nd place, I was hoping for top 4 and maybe, 3rd.

We have to try different players. I wish we had brought a few more U21s to this tournament. Don't know why, Jasjit Kular was brought in, when Gurjinder or Amit Rohidas could have been tried out.

[ssp]

We are 4-0 up against Pakistan at half time. All open play goals. Pakistan are appallingly bad. No marking, no committment and poor basic skills. We are under no real threat, but our play isn't amazing. Quite a few of our players are making unforced errors and the final pass is usually hurried.

Finished 6-1. Pakistan are shockingly poor. Doing all the stupid things we used to do- dribbling aimlessly, ball watching, no marking, no committment, slow ball speed and poor fitness.

We didn't have to do much to create chances. Just 2-3 quick passes across the pitch and we had acres of space to attack the circle. We still managed to mess up at least a dozen goal scoring chances.

I have criticised our forwards many times, but today, Pardeep Mor and Kothajit were frustrating too. So many times Pardeep Mor was in a great position and he usually just whacked in a hopeful cross. He is not a patch on Gurbaj. Kothajit just seemed tentative and doesn't seem to have developed as much as I had hoped.

I think we should arrange a bilateral series against Pakistan.....not for any benefit for the future, but just to improve our woeful record against them!!

[arjun2761]

India loses 2-3 to Canada to finish in an awful 6th place. The top 3 teams grab the top 3 spots with malaysia finishing 4th.

[ssp]

We reserved one of our worst performances this year for the last game against Canada and contrived to lose 3-2, when we should have won by 3-4 goals.

I suspect we have gone 3 steps backwards in the last 2 tournaments.

Terrible play in both circles. Every Canadian attack seemed to end in a shot at our goal or a PC or a goal. The opposite happened at the other end, as we had 47 circle penetrations and scored 2! Our defenders were beaten easily, there was no marking (ball watching in the best Indian way) and generally looked sloppy or tackled like novices.

At the front, the forwards were comical-even by Indian standards. Ramandeep was clear through and just fell in trying to hit the ball! Mandeep and Talwinder contributed nothing. They had trouble passing 5m. Akashdeep had several chances but usually hit straight at the keeper. Our PCs were poor. No real variation. But I expect they will all be selected till 2020 at least.

Several other players were below par or aren't good enough- Chinglensana, Kothajit, Jasjit, Satbir and Surendar Kumar. The selectors will react by bringing in Uthappa, Danish or even Raghunath.

So almost half the squad were poor or pathetic. We are not looking at amazing contributions, but just doing the basic things properly- marking, passing accurately or hitting the target....or not just falling down.

I suspect we are around 8-10th in the rankings.

[PKBasu]

Promising start, but a catastrophic finish, seems to be our story. (Better than Pakistan, who were disastrous from start to finish, but that is no compensation).

[jaydeep]

Some retrospection.

Lessons for Indian team from Hockey World League

However, there are several aspects where the Indians need to improve a lot. Penalty corner conversion will be the top agenda on the list.
The Indians lack too much variations in their penalty corners and the conversion rate is really poor when compared to Australia and the top European teams.
The typical 'desi' style of taking penalty corners is to blast the ball with full power towards the rival goal. Accuracy and variations are not really our strong points.
While this approach does fetch results on a few occasions, it is not too effective against the top teams who excel in rushing the stopper and hitter and cramping them for space.
The fact that the Indians converted only seven of the 27 penalty corners they earned over the course of the tournament indicates the amount of improvement they have to achieve in order to match the top teams.

The match against Holland also exposed the gap between Indians and European players in terms of tactical expertise. On too many occasions, the Indians were caught on the wrong foot whole going on the attack as the speedy Dutch counter-attacks caused the defence all sorts of problems.

The finishing was also poor during the matches against Holland, Malaysia and Canada with many of the half chances being wasted.

[ssp]

Our women start their HWL semifinals in Johannesburg today. Not holding out much hope after watching their last outing n the NZ test series...or the previous 5+ years under Hawgood. Embarrassing, dumb hockey with not even a hint of progress.

[arjun2761]

Our women got a 0-0 tie with a similarly ranked South Africa in the HWL SF in Johannesburg. Probably, an OK result given that the South Africans were at home.

[ssp]

We lost 4-1 to USA.

Didn't see the match as it's too painful to watch our ladies play. We can't compete with quick, physical sides who are reasonably well organised.

Next match v Chile is crucial. I fear we have regressed from our lowly standards and Chile have improved (they lost narrowly to USA), so we could lose this match as well. We have no chance against Argentina. Even if we make the quarter finals, we will get hammered by the top team from the other pool (England or Germany).