A depleted India blew away a third minute lead to godown 1-2 against Pakistan in the first of the four-Test hockey series at Karachitoday.
The Test, first between the arch-rivals in five years,failed to live up to expectations as both the sides played lacklustre hockey,much to the disappointment of the fans who had thronged the stadium with thehope of witnessing a thriller between the traditional rivals.
India, playing without the services of several regularsincluding Dhanraj Pillay and Gagan Ajit Singh, raised hopes of an upset winagainst their more fancied opponents when Arjun Halappa gave them the lead inthe third minute.
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But ace penalty cornmer expert Sohail Abbas neutralisedthe lead in the 17th minute before Rehan Butt's stunning goal in the 26thextended Pakistan's domination over India in recent times.
India have lost all the seven matches they have playedagainst Pakistan this year.
The match hardly had any intensity, generally associated with Indo-Pak clashes,but that could be attributed to the absence of several players in the Indianranks.
Both the sides played cautiously for most part of thematch without getting into the attacking mode and it ensured that the matchprogressed at a dull pace.
India paid the price for being too defensive in theirapproach as they could trouble the Pakistan defence on a very few occasions --just twice in the first half and a couple of times more in the second.
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They also seemed to have learned little from their poorshow in the Olympics, where they finished seventh, as they kept on making thesame mistakes that they committed in Athens.
Struggling to play as a unit, they were guilty ofmaking wrong passes, poor trapping and faulty clearances.
India must consider themselves lucky not to haveconceded more than a couple of goals in the first half as their more fanciedopponents missed several opportunities including three penalty corners duringthe period.
After scoring from the first penalty corner, Abbasmissed the next three with goalkeeper Adrian D'Souza doing a good job and justminutes before the break, Shabbir Hussain and Kashif Jawad missed sitters, bothhitting off target.
The Indians, particularly teenager D'Souza, did well to deny Abbas in the firsthalf but then they allowed the Pakistan forwards to make repeated inroads intotheir defence.
The Indian forwards, with too little internationalexperience, also could not rise to the occasion, failing to play in combination.Barring the time they took the lead early on, they hardly tested the Pakistanigoalkeeper Salman Akbar.
The Test got off to a rousing start when the raw Indianforwards earned a penalty corner from which Halappa converted off a rebound,stunning the crowd.
But the visitors failed to carry on from there as thePakistanis regrouped themselves and pressed hard for the equaliser.
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After several attempts, Abbas drew parity through histrademark drag flick that beat D'Souza all ends up before hitting the top leftof the net.
Butt's juggling act inside the Indian circle before abrilliant one-handed tap into the box sent the crowd on their feet and theIndians into a shell.
India made a mess of the second penalty corner they gota few minutes later when Vivek Gupta could not stop the push from SandeepMichael properly.
The visitors were slightly better after the break asthey made at least three good counter-attacks in the first 10 minutes into thehalf. But all those attacks fizzled out near the Pakistani post.
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The two teams will now travel to Quetta for the secondTest on September 27.
PTI
