Last Updated on November 28, 2018 9:41 pm by INDIAN AWAAZ
Harpal Singh Bedi / Bhubaneswar
Displaying their awesome fire power ,India commenced their Hockey World cup campaign with an authoritative 5-0 win over South Africa at the Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar on Wednesday.
For the winners who led 2-0 at half time the goal scorers were Simranjeet Singh (2) Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh and Lalit Upadhyay (one each)
The 43rd clash between India and South Africa turned out to be a one sided affair as the hosts totally dominated the proceedings and in fact the score line is no indication of the overwhelming superiority of the Indians. With this win India now have 26 victories,8 losses and 9 draws against theProteas.
Coach Harendra Singh kept his promise of playing hard and aggressive hockey and his players did the same. South Africa failed to put up a semblance of fight and were lucky to have escaped with a rather light punishment.
India opened their pool C league assignment aggressively and that made South Africa go defensive leaving the midfield for the hosts. The Blue Shirts had a chance to go ahead in the very first minute but Akashdeep was wee bit late to connect the ball in the circle.
India start their campaign at the Odisha Hockey Men's World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018 on a high after a dominating 5-0 win against @SA_Hockey on 28th November. India plays Belgium next on Sunday at 7 PM IST.#DilHockey #IndiaKaGame #HWC2018 pic.twitter.com/nFfXaPzveC
— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) November 28, 2018
South Africans tried hard to come out of the Indian strangle hold but failed as midfielders Manpreet and his deputy Chinglensana backed by solid defenders did not give them any chance to escape.
The Rival defence survived several anxious moments but its fall looked inevitable. In the sixth minute forward Lalit Upadhyay had a good chance to score but his shot was wide off the target Two minutes later Mandeep and other forwards failed to intercept a cross before the South African goal.
But it was too good to last for the South Africans as their defence collapsed in the 10th minute when they conceded the first penalty corner, Harmanpreet’s powerful drag flick was palmed off by goal keeper Rassie Pieterse but on the rebound Manddep Singh made no mistake in putting the ball home.
Two minutes later India increased their lead with Akashdeep sent the ball home after being set up by Simranjeet Singh much to the delight of packed house.
There was no change in the script as far as India was concerned in the second quarter. The hosts kept pounding the rival defence but were just not able to hit the target. They forced their second penalty corner but could not convert.
Though India had 66 percent of the ball possession in the first 30 minutes they could not increase the goal tally. Dilpreet , Nilakanta Sharma, Simranjeet had their chances but they failed o convert.
South African fought hard but were not able to test the Indian defence or goalkeeper. In fact in the first two session the Africans were hard.ly in picture as far as midfield was concerned. The just beefed up their defence to frustrate the Indian from increasing their lead. In that strategy they succeed to some extent.
The hosts continued to have major share of ball possession but the crowded defence and their own poor marksmanship saw to it that they kept stagnated with 2-0 lead till the 40th minute. The first serious attacking move was made by the South African forwards in the 43 minute which came to naught as they failed to get past the dour defence. However another attack earned them their first penalty corner which was cleared by goal keeper P,R Sreejesh
This led to a a furious counter by the Indian resulting in the 3rd goal by Simranjeet who was nicely set by Mandeep Singh (3-0) this was in 43rd minute and the hosts closed the third quarter with Lalit Upadhyay’s fourth goal (4-0).
A minute into the last quarter the Indian tally went up again with Simranjee Singh score off a penalty corner rebound (5-0) and after that they tried hard but failed to score.
“ I am very happy with team performance” Harendra singh told the media persons.” We played to a plan and did not give any quarters to our rivals”
“As i had said that first win in such level of competitions is very important as it takes off 30 to 40 percent of pressure and that is what we have done.”
Boys combined well, they played focused game and result is before you. He added