Sunday, December 04, 2011

Hockey News
At FIH Champions Challenge 1 2011, Johannesburg, South Africa

Final
India l Belgium 3-4

Goal Scored - RV Raghunath (IND) 23' PC, Sandeep Singh (IND) 40' PC, Shivendra Singh (IND) 54' and Jerome Dekeyser (BEL) 44' and 57', Gauthier Boccard (BEL) 55', Tom Boon (BEL) 70'

Again Indian defense let down and India lost final against Belgium after leading 3-1 ... Indians started well and were attacking also defending well ... Raghunath converted 1st penalty corner to gave lead which we hold until half-time ... In the second half also we were controlling ... In 40th minute Sandeep Singh converted 4th penalty corner to nscored his 7th goal of the tournament ... Belgium scored through mistake from our defense in 44th minute but Shivendra Singh scored excellent solo goal in 54th minute to gave 3-1 lead ... Immediately Raghnuath did unnecessarily hard tackle and got yellow card ... Belgium take full advantage of the situation and scored 2 goal in 3 minutes to make it 3-all ... After that next few minutes we were living dangerously as our defense was non-existent ... In 68th minute Yuvraj failed to hit in open goal and when 40 seconds were remaining on the clock then Belgium scored 4th field goal due to another defense lapse by Indians ... That was enough for them to complete amazing comeback to win the title and book next edition's Champions trophy ticket.

Nobbs need to work on our defense and habit of receiving goals in dying moments ... There are lot of scope to improve before crucial Olympics qualifier in February ... In the final last 15 minutes after Raghunath's yellow card cost us match with very poor defending.

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