Beat hosts 3-2 in Hockey Junior World Cup opener
It is only a coincidence that the senior Indian hockey team had faced the Netherlands in its Olympics’ opener and in the opening match of the Hero Hockey Junior World Cup at the Major Dhyan Chand stadium on Friday, the under-21 team too found themselves playing against the same opponent. And, there was no change in the script as the scoreline was once again 3-2 in favour of the Dutch.
At the start, the Indians were nervous and conceded early lead to the Dutch in the only the third minute of the match. Tom Hiebendaal took the ball from the left, dribbled past two defenders before passing it to Vos Pelle, who in turn set up the ball for Milan van Baal. Stationed in front of the post, van Baal put it home to open the account for the visitors.
Two minutes later, India’s hard-working forwards earned a penalty corner but Sukhmanjit Singh failed to convert it. Desperate for the equalizer, Akashdeep Singh from the right and Ramandeep Singh from the left were consistent in taking the ball inside the circle. Their effort gained another short corner and this time 20-year old Gurjinder Singh fired an aerial hit, which flew past the rival goalkeeper Piet Noordam and brought the match even on 1-1 in the 13th minute.
However, the Jon bleby-coached Netherlands with their tight man-to-man marking, a strong defensive structure and more agile in ball clearance, managed to hold centre-half Manpreet Singh-led Indians at bay till their rival strikers were going strong. Ramandeep, the 20-year old striker who recently became the Hockey India league’s costliest buy, seemed off-colour on the evening, staying behind on couple of goal-scoring feeds.
With the momentum shifting hugely in their favour, the visitors kept putting pressure on the Indians and testing their backline consisting Kothajit Singh, vice-captain Amit Rohidas and Sukhmanjit. It paid off for the Dutch side as they came up with twin strikes inside three minutes. In the 25th minute, Mark Rijkers slotted home with a left-handed flick and van Baal scored his second by chipping in front of the cage, leaving India’s custodian Harjot Singh stunned. This left the Gregg-Clarke coached side trailing 1-3 at the half-time.
In the second half, India employed the strategy of attacking from the flanks instead of the centre and its success was evident from India’s second goal. The 42nd minute witnessed the Indian flair with successful raiding from Mandeep Singh and Ramandeep as they coordinated well with Akashdeep. The later’s awesome left-handed hit from a minor angle helped the hosts diminish the margin to one goal. After that, no side could score. And the team with the beautiful one-touch hockey prevailed.
Everyone gave 100 per cent: Manpreet
After losing the match, Indian skipper Manpreet said that they need to be ready when they face Canada on Saturday. “Today, obviously the result was not in our favour. But, we can take our heart from the fact that everyone gave their cent per cent effort. We were better in the second half, especially our attack was much better. But in the end, that was not enough,” he said before adding, “we can’t afford to take Canada lightly. It is an important match for us.”