India - Pakistan series

[BSharma]

The matches on the Pakistan leg of the tour will be played as follows:

24th Sep: HCP Stadium/ Karachi.

27th Sep: Gen Musa Stadium/ Quetta.

29th Sep: Lala Ayub Stadium/ Peshawar.

1st Oct: National Hockey Stadium/ Lahore.

The matches in India will be played in:

New Delhi/4th October

Chandigarh/6th October

Amritsir/8th October

Hyderabad/10th October

The world wide telecast rights contract for the Pakistan leg of the series has been awarded to Ten Sports and the matches of the series will be shown in Pakistan, India, Asia, Far East, Middle East, Gulf , Europe and America.

[david]

India lost 1-2 in the first match.

Arjun Halappa put India ahead and later Sohail drag flick blinder got the equaliser for hosts.
Off a set-piece drill Pak went ahead 2-1 with dependable Rehan Butt scoring and there were no goals in the second half.

Overall bad display by both the teams and it is ``good'' that the passions and flair seen between these two teams are conspicuous by their absence.

[Red_Indian]

The umpiring was crap... defn. biased in favour of Pakistan.

[BSharma]

Was the hockey match televised in India and other countries?

I was somewhat relieved that India did not lose by a bigger margin. Pakistan played two youngsters Adnan Zakir and Imran Warsi, who represented Pakistan U21 team at 5th Asian Junior Cup earlier this year. How many junior players did India field in this match?

The win-loss record in this series is less important to me than the emergence of new players in the Indian team.

The umpiring was crap... defn. biased in favour of Pakistan.

The umpires for the first test were Amarjit Singh (Malaysia) and Rashid Butt (Pakistan).

Sohail Abbas scored his 262nd goal in international hockey and he is now six goals away from Paul Litjens’s world-record figure of 267 goals.

[david]

Bushanji,
The match was televised live in India by Tensports which has the rights for the four matches in Pak.

[BSharma]

Although I have satellite TV at home to see Indian TV, I will have to check if Ten Sport is showing hockey in USA or not. The PHF web site had reported that the matches will be shown in USA also.

For those of you in India or elsewhere who get a chance to see the matches on TV or live, please write your comments about the matches especially if any Indian player is playing superbly. Thanks.

[david]

Red Indian, I would not to comment on the umpiring because Amarjit is considered an Indian at heart though he is a Malaysian by passport.
So One is from Pak and one is from India.
Talking about umpiring, the basic flaw with both Pak and India is the poor standards in domestic competitions where umpires give lot of respect to players and not to the rules. As a result when Indian play abroad under the whistle of Europeans we get cuaght for silly mistakes like the Dhanraj Pillay reverse stick yellow card. In Asia 99 out of 100 umpires would have missed it. Another example is, jumping the gun during a PC. The first time you do it you get a green in international tourneys, especially if foreign umpires officiate. In India, players waste time and jump the gun three four times and still escape from the cards. This is detrimental to the growth of the game. SInce this is a Dosti (Friendship) series no point cribbing about umpiring.
One more interesting incident. After the allegedly fixed match with Malaysia, Canada lost an Olympic berth and after that the world over umpires became anti-India. The same like the Indian boxer at Athens who refused to file a protest because he knows he would be antagonising the refs and judges for his life time. He said that in as many words.
We all know about the Gymnastics fiasco at the Olympics. since the result is not going to matter in this series, lets leave umpires in peace.

[Red_Indian]

I was talking specifically about Rashid. Time after time he pulled the Indians for the slightest of mistakes. Is this hockey's equivalent of neutral umpiring - having an umpire each from either country! Why the hell can't they have neutral umpires.

I saw bits and pieces of the first half and since most of the action was in the Indian half (Rashid was in charge of that side) most of my views are based on that.

[david]

Yes, you are right. But most of them correct according to rules. Small mistakes but can be pulled. He was strict, unlike Amarjit.

He was the same in the second session too.

Of course, he did make a mistake a couple of times. But I thought all the PCs he gave were genuine PCs.

My point is forget about umpiring. Both teams played badly. The hangover after Olympics continues.
Otherwise how can one expect Mr Dependable like Dilip Tirkey leave a ball to pass the back line after Xalxo gave him a back pass instead of taking a 16-yard hit. After that there was the long corner which resulted in a PC and Pakistan equalised.
Dilip Was still the best in defence on the day. Xalxo was good only in patches. Harpal, as usual, was atrocious and was used only for a few minutes in each half.
Midfield was mediocre except for Arjun for a few minutes in the first half and Ignace and Vikram for a few minutes in the second half. There were no coordinated moves.
Sandeep Michael was off colour. Adam Sinclair was too fast and could not stop the ball from crossing the goalline and Tushar did not get the ball much when he played. Vivek Gupta made some good moves and some silly mistakes.
The only star of the day was Adrian D'Souza in the goal as usual. But during the first PC he hesitated in advancing to the top of the D and had no chance when Sohail smartly put it to the left top hand corner of the GK.
Overall a fair result. Pak played well and missed at least three sitters. India did not play a coherent game except for the first 10 minutes.

[Kumar]

I agree with David.. Today seems to be the day of agreeing with David I guess.

I think there is no point in agruing against Umpiring.. and Indians do a lot of it.. They have a mindset that all umpires are against them... and always have a convenient excuse to fall back on.. It is high time that Domestic umpires pull up their socks and start throwin more yellow cards out there ...

[BSharma]

Talking about umpiring, the basic flaw with both Pak and India is the poor standards in domestic competitions where umpires give lot of respect to players and not to the rules. As a result when Indian play abroad under the whistle of Europeans we get cuaght for silly mistakes like the Dhanraj Pillay reverse stick yellow card. In Asia 99 out of 100 umpires would have missed it.

It is another reason why the Indian hockey team must play a lot of matches outside India.

Indian players have to learn to live with bad umpiring decisions and how to control their emotions when those bad decisions go against the Indian team.

[david]

India leading 3-0 at half time.
Second Test match at Quetta

Sandeep Singh converts through low drag flicks the first two PCs and then off a set-piece drill Ignace makes it 3-0.

Tirkey gets two more chances with two more PCs in the 35th min but Pak GK manages to clear them.

Pak got 3 PCs but could not get past Indian GK Adrian D'Souza who continues to be brilliant.

[jayakris]

Adrian is quickly becoming one of the best in the world in goalkeeping.

Go India !!

Jay

[jayakris]

India beat Pakistan 4-1, level series
PTI, Sept 27, 2004 07:00:00 PM

Quetta (Pakistan), Sep 27 (PTI) An under-strength India sprung a major surprise to upset archrivals Pakistan 4-1 and level the four-match hockey series here today.

India, who lost the first Test at Karachi narrowly, bounced back strongly to register the convincing victory which was also their first triumph against Pakistan in eight matches.

Riding on a brace by drag-flicker Sandeep Singh (13th and 17th minutes) and a 33rd minute strike by Ignace Tirkey, the visitors took a 3-0 lead by half-time before Tushar Khandekar added to the tally in the 60th minute with an opportunistic goal. Pakistan wasted four penalty corners before scoring from the fifth in the 69th minute through Sohail Abbas for their consolation goal.

The series stands tantalisingly poised at 1-1 after today's result. PTI
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Yes. Go India!

Jay

[PKBasu]

What a thoroughly dominant performance. Astonishing that they were leading 4-0 until the last minute of the match. And the final result is still a pretty impressive 4-1. Sandeep Singh of course was a drag on the team at the Olympics because he was committing elementary errors in defense, but presumably these have been dealt with now that Rach etc. have had more time with the team. And Khandekar wasn't even in the Athens team. Shows there really is quite a bit of depth in Indian hockey...

Here's the rediff report:
http://in.rediff.com/sports/2004/sep/27hock.htm