Mistakes All The Way

An India-Pakistan match is something that alwaysexcites people on either side of the border. But this one in Lahore's NationalStadium was no excitement.

The match never rose to the heights that we have oftenseen in India-Pakistan matches in the past. Maybe the tension of playing at homegot to Pakistan. And in the case of the Indians, they were trying to keep thingsin check and avoiding defeat in a match that was keenly watched by thousands athome.

Either way, one saw more mistakes than classy moves andthe end result was a 2-1 victory for Pakistan, which on the strength of thenumber of attempts and chances they had was rather low.

For India, it was a case of getting away with a narrowloss despite gaping holes and mistakes in defence.

It was somewhat unlucky for India that the winning goalfor Pakistan came in a controversial manner. The stroke that was awarded to themlooked a little dubious.

With about five minutes to go for the match, Pakistangot a stroke when a deflected ball hit Viren Rasquinha and Sohail Abbas made nomistake and in the process became the highest all-time scorer in ChampionsTrophy.

The Indians may also have felt they deserved a strokein the last couple of minutes, but then this is all part of the game. Umpiringlapses become magnified in defeats and get pushed to the background invictories.

Once again the overall performance of the Indian teamdisappointed. They looked disjointed and there was little co-ordination betweenthe midfield and the forwards. Basics like trapping, too, seemed poor. At thislevel, a coach cannot be expected to correct such basic problems.

In fact, the defensive lapses did not show up in thescoreline, only because Pakistan made a hash of too many chances. As a result,the match appeared close in terms of the scoreline, but the truth is Pakistanhad a better plan, but poor finishing.

India missed some penalty corners and did not even showany method in the attacks. I fail to understand why the players are not movingfast. Even when they have space, they do not move up and create a move.

Keeping possession is very important, and once a rivalteam's move has been thwarted, the idea is to gain space and convert that into ameaningful attack. Instead, we are losing the ball and once again giving theadvantage to the rival.

Agreed, this is a young team, but the fact is that thisteam has many players who have come from junior ranks and have done well at theinternational level.

Many of them might even be going to the Junior WorldCup next year. Such mistakes and lack of ideas cannot be pardoned at such highlevels of competition.

All we can hope for is that lessons learnt from thistournament will be used in the right earnest instead of making some players thescapegoat as has happened in the past.

India's third loss in four matches keeps them in thefourth place among six teams. The Pakistanis with their third win share thesecond place with Spain. Holland with an all-win record look favourites todefend their title.

India should beat New Zealand, whose sole point hascome from a draw with Germany, who also got their first points from the draw.

India could well end up fighting for the third-fourthplace and it could well be against Pakistan, as it happened last year inAmsterdam.

Finally a word on Sohail Abbas. This sharp shooter, whois now the world's highest goal scorer, also has the record for highest numberof goals in Champions Trophy.

Interestingly, both the records have come againstIndia. He equalled the world record against India in the recent India-PakistanTest series and now this landmark.

This drag-flick specialist once used to spend most ofhis time on the bench and came into the game only for set pieces, but now he isan integral part of the team, having being the highest scorer in tournamentslike the Athens Olympics, Azlan Shah tournament and also the recentIndia-Pakistan series.

It is he who has often made the difference for Pakistaneven in a mediocre match. How one wishes India had a star player like him.

PTI