Hockey World Cup: After Spain, now India will come with the intention of defeating England
Rourkela. Having started their campaign in fine form with a dominating win over Spain, India will take on England in their second pool match of the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup here on Sunday and will be brimming with confidence to rise to the occasion. India beat Spain 2-0 in their Pool D opener at the new Birsa Munda Stadium on Friday but England will be equally challenging. In the first two quarters, India played excellent attacking hockey and took the lead through a penalty corner through local player Amit Rohidas and then doubled it through Hardik Singh.
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Captain Harmanpreet Singh and vice-captain Rohidas again put up a fine defensive display which impressed head coach Graham Reid. Harmanpreet & Co. would be looking to put up another strong defensive performance against England. England have scored in all four quarters in their win against Wales. Reid said, “It is good to win the first match. But the defensive effort was pleasing to watch and we kept possession of the ball. There were hardly a few people who did not play well. That’s what you need to win in the World Cup. We will continue it in the next match as well. The experienced PR Sreejesh and Krishan Bahadur Pathak were also excellent in front of the Indian goal but England goalkeeper Oliver Payne also wasted a lot of effort against Wales, especially in the final quarter.
The only weakness for the Indians was penalty corners as they could not convert any of the five they took against Spain. Harmanpreet, who has been the team’s best player and top-scorer in almost every tournament in recent years, however, could not find the ball on target from a penalty corner apart from missing a penalty stroke. He accepted it and would like to compensate for this performance against England. Failure to convert penalty corners against England could cost India dearly. The Indian players will also have to be careful not to show any card from the referee as they had to play in the last quarter against Spain without Abhishek who was shown a yellow card for a foul.
A win against England is important as it will take India one step closer to the quarterfinals. The hosts would like to finish on top of their pool and will certainly look to dominate against the lower-ranked side of the group, Wales. England are ranked fifth in the world rankings, one place above India but there has not been much difference in the performances between the two teams over the years. Last year both the teams had played three matches against each other. The match between the two was drawn 4-4 in the Commonwealth Games. The match ended in a 3-3 draw in the first leg of the FIH Pro League and India won the second match 4-3.
Nick Bandurak, top scorer at the 2002 Commonwealth Games with 11 goals, scored against Wales, and Phil Roper, who was impressive in Birmingham, was also impressive. England scored three field goals, the third of which was scored by Nikos Park. Liam Ansell scored twice from the penalty corner. India has won 10 matches against England while the England team has won only seven matches and drawn four matches. Spain will take on Wales in another Pool D match on Sunday. The match will start at 7 pm Indian time.
