Ace drag flicker Sohail Abbas emerged as the highestgoalscorer in the world as Pakistan held their nerves to ward off a lateresurgence by India and clinch the Friendship Hockey Series with a 2-1 victoryat Amritsar today.
The win gave Pakistan an unassailable 4-1 lead in theeight-match series, the last game of which would be played in Hyderabad onSunday.
Poor finishing returned to haunt India as theyfrittered away a number of chances, mostly in the second half, to lose the matchplayed before a sizeable crowd at the Guru Nanak Dev University ground.
Abbas achieved the feat in confusing circumstances asthe goal he scored in the eighth minute was initally disallowed by neutralumpire Amarjit Singh who thought the ball had gone over the post.
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But as the Pakistanis protested, he consulted the otherumpire Satinder Kumar before signalling in favour of the visitors.
On reaching the feat, Abbas, who broke Dutchman PaulLitjens' 267-goal record, waved to the the crowd and went down on his knee tokiss the turf as his teammates and rivals gathered to congratulate the29-year-old penalty corner expert.
In a unique gesture, the Pakistani players sought aone-minute time out and crossed their sticks over their shoulders under whichAbbas was made to pass, amidst loud cheers from the crowd.
Abbas, who had equalled Litjens' record in the fifth Test in Delhi, had to waittill the seventh match of the series for the distinction, which came in the212th match of his career. Pakistan, who were leading 1-0 at half time,consolidated their position further when Rehan Butt scored his first goal onIndian soil in the 47th minute. Butt came up with a superbly executedreverse-flick after Mohd Shabbir hit from a set-piece.
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India scored in the very next minute from a penaltystroke which was awarded when Arjun Halappa was stick-checked inside thePakistani circle.
Desperate to win the match to keep their hopes forlevelling the series alive, India failed to pose much of a threat in the firsthalf even though they made a few incisive moves, courtesy the combination ofVikram Pillay and Halappa.
They suffered an early setback when Abbas scored theworld record goal and though they tried hard for the equaliser, they wererepeatedly denied.
Mid-fielder Pillay was a livewire, making some impressive efforts and in theprocess he gave the side more than one opportunity to level the score. But theIndians did no good to their cause by muffing those gilt-edged chances. In the17th minute, Pillay came up with a fine interception in the mid-field beforemaking a pass to Halappa whose cross into the circle could not be trapped byeither Tushar Khandekar or Ignace Tirkey.
Nine minutes later, Pillay made a similar move, thoughthis time on the right, and passed the ball to Tirkey who dribbled past a coupleof defenders before hitting a powerful reverse-flick that was well stopped bygoalkeeper Salman Akbar.
In between, the hosts earned a penalty corner butwasted it after Vivek Gupta stopped the push and passed it forward only to seeHari Prasad not in his place.
India's show was patchy before the break but theyregrouped themselves to win a penalty stroke and two penalty corners in thesecond half.
Although they scored from the spot, Halappa overcomingsome nervousness to hit the top of the net, they failed to take advantage of thepenalty corners.
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"We should have scored at least one goal from thepenalty corners. But the variations we adopted did not work well,"assistant coach Jagbir Singh said.
PTI
