In its last warm-up game played against South Africa on Wednesday at The Hague, Netherlands, Team India displayed maturity and sense of purpose to achieve resounding victory over South Africa 4-1.
India dominated the game from the very first half of the game itself, when Rupinder Pal Singh made no mistake in converting a penalty corner opportunity and took a 1-0 lead at the end of the first half. In the second half of the game, it was Rupinder again who successfully converted another penalty corner to further add on to the lead and take it to 2-0.
South Africa did manage to convert one penalty corner out of all the opportunities to reduce the margin, but India restricted them from scoring any further goals demonstrating a strong defence line-up that India has been working on. To further add to the scoring account, it was Captain Sardar Singh who contributed through a field goal and raised the score to 3-1, which was followed by V R Raghunath’s successful penalty corner to seal the victory with a 4-1 on the board against South Africa.
“The first half of the match turned out to be a little slower than expected, but the second half of the game saw a really good performance by the team, where defence also gave an excellent response. We are happy to see both lalit Upadhyay and Yuvraj Walmiki living up to the expectations from their very first match itself. The team has been preparing for a long time now and it’s time for the boys to deliver their best. I am confident that the boys will perform well in this tournament,” high performance director Roelant Oltmans, said after the match.