A Win At Last!

A win finally after two matches does give a goodfeeling to all of us who follow Indian hockey so keenly. I am sure it must bethe same with the players, who did well to register a win against Germany by 3-1in their third match of the Champions Trophy. There must be both a sense ofrelief and positive vibes.

A win always changes the mindset of a team, which isgoing through a trying period. I hope this win will be a turnaround of sorts forthe team in this tournament.

India also showed some resurgence as their play in thelater stages of the match was much stronger than before. They scored twice inthe last quarter and also showed greater purpose in attacks. It also meant thatthe forwards are no longer goal-shy.

Sandeep Michael, Arjun Halappa and Vivek Gupta scoredin the second half as India were deserving winners.

The Indians were in the mood to play flowing hockeywith the forwards showing some good co-ordination. Vikram Pillay and VirenRasquinha gave Halappa good support in the forward line. Halappa's goal was abeauty and it indicates the amount of talent he possesses.

If there is any cynicism on the grounds that thisGerman side is only a pale shadow of the kind that we are used to at a bigevent, let me make it clear that winning a match in a big tournament is alwayssomething that rejuvenates a team.

Also, how can an Indian team be faulted for someoneelse sending a new-look side. That has been part of the German strategy forChampions Trophy for sometime now.

In any game, the key is always to ensure that pointsagainst weaker teams are not squandered. Then the team must play its guts outagainst the stronger sides. For instance this Indian team has lost to Spain andHolland, two of the strongest sides.

Now with a win against Germany, they need to ensuregood results against a team like New Zealand. And if the result is positiveagainst Pakistan (the match is yet to take place at the time of writing thispiece) the Indian team's standing will suddenly look better than what it lookedlike after the first two losses.

Against Germany the Indian team looked fresher and madeuse of the chances that came their way. I am sure the coach, Gerhard Rach andskipper Dilip Tirkey must have given the boys a piece of their mind aftermissing out chances and for those defensive lapses.

Both areas seemed to have been catered to against theGermans, who are in Lahore with just two of their players who did duty inAthens. The remaining 14 faces are new at this level.

Having given the Indians credit for their improvedperformance, I did notice that the Germans despite their relative inexperiencehad a greater share of ball possession and they are working on somecombinations, which could pay dividend in the future.

Their target is to garner experience against the topteams, which these players may never get to play against in normalcircumstances.

The German defence was rather weak and left a lot ofholes. In fact the mistakes they made against India were huge blunders.

To the credit of Halappa and Gupta, they utilised theselapses and gave India a morale-boosting win. But personally I would have beenhappier had the Indians scored at least twice more, which they were very muchcapable of.

The team's win becomes all the more creditable becausethey trailed by a goal in the first half. They made a comeback in the secondhalf and turned the tables on their rivals. For Germany this was their thirddefeat in the tournament.

PTI