India's last place in Pool B of the men's field hockey World Cup Championship deserves some explanation though they are looking to improve at the Asian Games in Doha in six weeks.
India won the World Cup in 1975 and in the seven Championships since have finished no higher than fifth (1982 Mumbai, 1994 Sydney) and are currently ranked sixth in the world. At the Athens Olympics, India beat South Korea for seventh place.
South Korea is a contender for a semi-finals berth at this World Cup and India will play off for ninth to 12th positions.
India has retained the same core defence since Athens under the leadership of captain Dilip Tirkey, supported by Kanwalpreet Singh and goalkeeper Adrian D'Souza.
This group has conceded 32 penalty corners in the five pool matches against Germany, England, South Africa, South Korea and Netherlands and 12 goals were scored from those penalty corners.
India also conceded two penalty strokes and had only one field goal scored against them. In attack, India were awarded 11 penalty corners, converted three into goals and scored four field goals.
Vasudevan Baskaran, India's coach, was critical of the performance of India's deep defence. "We have to solve our deep defence problem which is the most important thing of all," Baskaran said. "Most of the deep defence [of other teams] in this tournament have played excellent hockey. The deep defenders should be sharper than the forwards. "I am disappointed in the deep defence as they have conceded penalty corners too softly, without a fight."
India's deep defence problem has been around since 2004. In the lead up to the Athens Olympics, India conceded 76 penalty corners and 27 conversions in 18 international matches.
India's then coach, Rajinder Singh searched for a defensive counterpoint to Dilip Tirkey and persisted with Kanwalpreet Singh who is now part of Baskaran's problem.
Baskaran seeks some hope for the Asian Games in six weeks at Doha. "The positive aspect of our play has been the mid-link which has played quite a consistent level of hockey. We have a good player in Hariprasad who played four games very well.
Comments
Comments are closed.