India - Pakistan series

[arjun2761]

Hard to see any positive in this anemic display by India. Pakistan is also a struggling team now so these losses are as bad as it looks. Other than Australia, I will not be surprised if one or two other average teams beat India in the C'Wealth games....

[jaydeep]

Frankly nothing positives from these matches ... Nothing special to write about our performance ...

Same old story, Pakistan wins again - Report from Hindu.

Check the comments from our Chief Coach Rajinder Singh (Jr) -
It was a learning experience for his team and hoped that the boys would cut down the errors and strike a good combination especially in the forward line during the Pakistan leg of the series.

"We haven't got enough time and we need more matches to get better. We are playing good and are capable of doing better," said the coach, who praised the goalkeeper Bharat Chhetri and the courageous effort of Vikram Pillay in the midfield.

How much more time our coach need to go above learning experiance??? Yesterday Pakistan had 5 penalty corners and we had none ... When we r having three specialist Drag and Flickers (Sandeep Singh, Deedar Singh and Raghunath), then our forwards should try to gain penalty corners ... Otherwise how we r going to test who r good in this lot???

Jaydeep.

[ssp]

India won 2-1 today!!

www.indianhockey.com
Kanwalpreet won man of the match!!

However we are slipping each year. In the 3rd & 4th tests we won just ONE PC!! That is pathetic. Yet the coach believes we are playing well!! Rajinder is not going to improve our fortunes. He is not good enough - he has brought nothing new to the team. We continue to play very poor hockey & tactically we are rubbish. No ideas on how to defend, no midfield (there are huge gaps & hardly any tackling) & the forwards are very ordinary...no real pace or skills to create chances or win PCs.

I think we will struggle badly at the Commonwealth games as Malaysia (let alone Pakistan) will be hard to beat (as recent history has shown)

[Dhruv]

Its not a full strength team so not a bad performance.

[arjun2761]

Definitely improved performance to win and apparently dominate play. However, I wonder if the Pakis are also experimenting at this stage....

[ssp]

Last match was drawn 3-3. Good recovery by India after being 3-0 down with just over 15 minutes left in the game.

Our defence is poor. Today's goals came off very amateurish defending....players were ball-watching.

Somehow we need the 'great Gill' & Kothikumaran to bring back Viren & Deepak (& retain Xalco & hopefully Deepak will also be available) for the Commonwealth games. Kanwalpreet is too slow & is a liability in defence.

[ssp]

At least Deepak & Viren are back, but our defence will be weak....no Xalco or Dilip. Are Kanwalpreet, Harpal & Sandeep the best in the country??

Also think there are too many forwards. Vinay dribbles too much but I think he should have been retained.

Let's hope the team performs better than against they did against Pakistan.

[India1989]

Can India win any medals at olympics or commonwealth at this rate of improvements?

[Ankit Desai]

India is going to play Pakistan home and away bases.

Apr 05 - Apr 15 Men's Test Series Vs Pakistan in India
Apr 23 - May 02 Men's Test Series Vs Pakistan in Pakistan

Pakistan to play hockey in India after 7 years

-Ankit

[Ankit Desai]

Pakistan to tour India for a bilateral hockey series after 7 years

Pakistan will cross the border next month and play matches in the cities of Ranchi, Lucknow, Delhi, Mohali and Jalandhar between April 5-15.

The Indian team will pay a return visit and play five matches in Lahore, Faisalabad, Karachi and Sialkot from April 23,

Raise of Ranchi on national stage. Kind support HIL got , it was inevitable to see Ranchi's rise. Let's see how far Ranchi can contribute in hockey.

-Ankit

[ssp]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 985236.cms

This series is off. I don't see much point in playing Pakistan (except improving their record against us!!) as we need to compete with the likes of NZ, Argentina, Korea, England to improve our standards. Playing Pakistan is never a learning experience, just an adrenalin fueled end to end match where tactics are ignored by both sets of players.

[PKBasu]

Yes, I agree it is a blessing in disguise that this series is cancelled. We gain nothing from playing more matches against Pakistan. We need to play others to figure out the best tactics against modern hockey sides, not against another mirror-India side.

[prasen9]

I don't know. Maybe you could try out youngsters and/or new strategies in matches. But, yes, no big loss.