New Delhi: The Indian men’s hockey team erased a three-goal deficit to hold South Africa to a 3-3 draw in the final Test of the five-match series that the hosts already had in their kitty with a 3-1 scoreline going into the fifth match.
India – who took this series as trials for the Olympic qualifiers – have tried different combinations in each game and expectedly looked out of sync in the first half of the dead rubber where coach Michael Nobbs chose to give defender Rupinder Pal Singh and wingers Manjeet Kullu and Danish Mujtaba their first outing.
As a result, South Africa were sitting pretty at half-time with a run-away 3-0 lead through Ricky West, Ian Haley and Miguel da Graca. However, a fightback from India denied South Africa their second win of the series as Yuvraj Walmiki, VR Raghunath and SK Uthappa brought India level.
Despite an unimpressive beginning, India earned two penalty corners (8th and 16th minute) but Raghunath shot the first one wide and couldn’t breach SA goalkeeper Jacques Le Roux’s defence on the second.
South Africa gained some momentum with 10 minutes left in the second half, which brought their first goal in the 26th minute with West. Rupinder was guilty of gifting the ball away to Julian Hykes who ran all the way down the right flank before making a deft pass in the striking circle to West, who made no mistake to put SA ahead.
India earned their third PC soon but this time Danish Mujtaba failed to stop it cleanly, allowing SA to push the ball clear. And five minutes after scoring their first goal, the visitors made it 0-2 through Haley, who made India pay for another defensive lapse.
Striker da Graca then gave SA a three-goal cushion in the 34th minute. After neatly receiving a long ball, he first dodged Raghunath and then Birender Lakra before his strike beat goalkeeper Sreejesh.
India almost scored their first goal three minutes into the second half when Tushar Khandekar’s run down the left flank saw him beat three defenders but Shivender Singh couldn’t control the final pass as the ball lifted off his stick and the whistle went up.
But in the 43rd minute, Yuvraj Walmiki made no mistake to make it 1-3. Skipper for the match, Sarvanjit Singh’s move saw him combining with Sardar Singh, who spotted an unmarked Yuvraj in front of the goal. The pass was perfect and Yuvraj got India the much-needed goal.
India finally converted a PC, their 4th of the match, in the 49th minute as Raghunath’s aerial drag-flick beat the goalkeeper. But momentum soon swung towards SA who earned three PCs in the next five minutes but weren’t able to convert any despite using some interesting variations.
A yellow card to West in the 63rd minute probably turned in India’s favour who took advantage of a 10-man South Africa by scoring the equaliser in the 66th minute. Uthappa, who made his debut in the series, continued to impress with another successful conversion. A free-hit just inside the SA 25-yard line saw some neat skills from Indian forwards, who tied SA defence into knots with Uthappa getting the final touch to lock it at 3-3.
India coach Nobbs was happy with the fighting spirit his team showed after conceding a big lead and said his team has done it a number of times in the recent past.
“Coming back from three-nil is a terrific result. We have been behind in a number of games in the last five months and we have always come back. So this is a good team,” Nobbs said.
The Indian coach was also happy with the work-out in a tough series to prepare for the all-important Olympic qualifiers beginning in four-weeks’ time.
“This has been a terrific series. It has given us an opportunity to look at all the probables, which has helped us see the make-up of the team before the qualifiers. So I’m really pleased with how it went.”
On the other hand, SA coach Gregg Clark was “heart-broken” after being up 3-0 at half-time.
“It’s tough to concede a draw after being up 3-0. So I’m a little heart-broken. We had a green card and a yellow card. And for me, that changed the game a little bit.”
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