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Reloaded: Paanch Ka Punch
Australia win by a dozen
England brush aside Pak
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World Cup
Diary
Are penalty corners taking too long?
Hockey, though 102 years old in Olympics, is still evolving. Some changes, including video referral, have been necessitated not only because of advancement of technology but also to ensure fairness in the supervision and conduct of matches.
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Reloaded: Paanch Ka Punch
New Delhi, March 4 The win revives chances of Spain of making to the semifinals from pool B after they had gone down fighting 1-2 to Pakistan in their last encounter. With two wins from three games, they are third on the table behind the pool leaders England and Australia. If the Spain could win the game against India with a flattering margin, it was all because of their strategy of not allowing their opponents possession of the ball in their half. Indian defence was brittle that cracked at first sign of an attack. Sreejesh, who was preferred to Andrian D’Souza did play well and bring out a couple of good saves. He often found himself in hapless situation as Indian marking was from satisfactory. Pol Amat, the most experienced and dangerous player from Spain, virtually had a goal offered to him on the platter in the first half. After taking a comfortable 2-0 lead at the breather, Spain stayed very much in the game even after conceding two goals to the home team in the second half. India did miss some chances as they failed to make use of five of their six penalty corners. Gurwinder Singh Chandi had the satisfaction of scoring his first goal of the World Cup, while Sandeep accounted for the second with a powerful grounder that beat Spaniards’ defence. India with games against England and South Africa left can now best hope for a position among the top eight provided they win one of the remaining two games. Winless and pointless South Africa is at the bottom in pool B after the Proteas suffered a humiliating 0-12 defeat, the biggest ever victory margin in the World Cup so far, at the hands of the Aussies earlier in the day. For the first 15 minutes, India raised false hopes of making it to match its opponents skill by skill in every department of the game. But once Albert Sala stole an opportunity on being left uncovered, he smashed the ball home past Sreejesh from top of the striking circle. The first goal did take some fight out of Indians as they started falling apart and cohesive and coordinated game they were playing till then started showing signs of cracking up. On the other hand, spurred by the first goal, Spain mounted its attacks with redoubled vigour. Needless dribbling, erratic clearances and wrongful distribution of balls starting proving to be banes of the home team as it conceded its second goal to unmarked Pol Amat just before the team split for the lemon break. Sandeep was first to open India’s account. But that did not bring any respite. Instead it provoked Spaniards move to attack more purposely and scored twice in quick succession in the 40th and 42nd minute, first from a penalty corner and second an opportunist field goal. Quemada scored twice from penalty corers while India had some consolation when Gurwinder Singh Chandi scored his maiden World Cup goal in the 43rd minute. Once India had reduced the margin to 2-4, it looked like fighting back. Four penalty corners that followed proved abortive while Quemada wrapped up the match for his team with a goal, four minutes from the final whistle.
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Australia win by a dozen
New Delhi, March 4 After losing to England 2-3 in their opening match of the group, Australia regained their rhythm to drub India 5-2 and they set an all-time record against South Africa today, bettering their 10-0 victory against the African team in the Beijing Olympic Games. This was the first World Cup face-off between Australia and South Africa, and the latter are unlikely to forget this humiliating rout in a hurry, as Australia’s previous biggest World Cup win was a 9-0 walloping of Ghana in the 1975 WorldCup in Kuala Lumpur. Australia used all kinds of combinations and permutations - they even had a new captain for this match in Liam Young De, as regular captain Jamie Dwyer was left to concentrate on adding up the goal tally - and came up trumphs, raining goals on the South African citadel in an incessant fury - five goals in the first half and seven on resumption to record one of the most auithoritative victories in the World Cup history. Australia seemed to have neither forgotton nor forgiven South Africa for their 2-3 defeat at the hands of the latter in the 1998 Commonwealth Games as they showed no mercy while pumping past the non-existent South African defence, reducing their goalkeeper Brendon Botes to a mere bystander. South Africa have now conceded 22 goals in three matches though they were no push-overs against Spain (2-4) and Germany (4-6) in their earlier two matches. But Australia proved to a combination of grit, speed, stamina and an uncanny ability to score which proved beyond the capability for South Africa to understand or cope with. Australia, the reigning Champions Trophy holders, are ranked second in the world, and they displayed today why they have been rated so highly. The Kookaburras show no mercy when they get into their maddening scoring mode, and South Africa got a terrible take of the Australian furry for rustling their feathers with a few early sallies which fetched them two penalty corners inthe 4th and 19th minutes. Australia earned their first penalty corner in the 8th minute, which went waste. But Like Doerner scored off the second penalty corner in the 15th minute to throw open the flood gate of goals. He went on to convert three more penalty corners to rake in four goals while the hustling forward and regular captain Jamie Dwyer accounted for three goals. Glenn Turner scored a brace while Desmond Abott,Fergus Kavanagh and Matthew Butturini scored a goal apiece. South Africa, after suffering three huge defeats, are out of the semifinal race in Group B which also features India and Pakistan.
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England brush aside Pak
New Delhi, March 4 And for Pakistan, it was yet another reverse in the three games it had played in the tournament so far. After 1-4 defeat at the hands of the hosts India on the opening day, it had raised hopes of staging a comeback with a 2-1 win over Spain in the last game. But the chances of a stage back evaporated as England, playing to a strategy, took good measure of their opponents, utilised gaps, weaknesses and poor marksmanship of their opponents to run away with a facile 5-2 win after taking a comfortable 2-0 lead at the breather. Pakistan did raise hopes in the beginning of second half with two of its veterans, under criticism for poor performance, Shaqeel Abbassi and Rehan Butt scoring a goal each to bring the team at par. But Pakistan could not progress any further. It was the first game in the current World Cup that witnessed ugly scenes, spat between players and officials of two teams and maximum award of green and yellow cards. And the final whistle brought out the anger and anguish of Pakistan players as they had a match of strong verbal exchanges before the umpires and team officials intervened. England team, improving with every outing, definitely enjoyed supremacy over their opponents in every aspect of the game. The English players not only prevented Pakistan’s scoring machine Sohail Abbas from converting any of the penalty corners but also pumped holes in the Pak defence to score last three goals in a gap of 12 minutes, the third coming in the 53rd minute and the fifth and the last in the 65th minute. Third and fifth goals came from Middleton while Jontly Clarke scored the fourth. Continuing their good performance in the tournament so far, England started with a flourish. They almost scored in the second minute when James Tindall made full use of a shoulder high trajectory to slam it powerfully into the board to the great dismay of Pakistani goalkeeper Salman Akbar. Pakistan protested as Tindall had raised his stick above the shoulder to connect to the ball. Though umpire Christian Blashch had blown for a goal, video referral sought by Pakistan saw the decision being reversed. But that could not keep England for long from scoring. Dominating exchanges and playing a commanding game with close marking, using gaps in Pakistani defence, English players ultimately got ahead in the 20th minute. It was Tindall again who had sent a powerful cross that saw unmarked Jontly Clarke sneaking it past Salman Akbar in the roof of the net. Stunned by the reverse, Pakistan had a few openings besides a couple of penalty corners. But all chances were muffed. Rehan Butt was the culprit on two occasions while Sohail Abbas failed to make use of any of the three penalty corners. Without learning from their undoing in the first 20 minutes, Pakistan paid yet another heavy price for leaving England player unmarked in the striking circle. Three minutes before the gong was sounded for the breather, Ashley Jackson made full use of a 25-yeard free hit to surprise Salman Akbar again. With two goals lead, England had put itself in the commanding position.
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Diary Are penalty corners taking too long? Prabhjot Singh writes from New Delhi Hockey, though 102 years old in Olympics, is still evolving. Some changes, including video referral, have been necessitated not only because of advancement of technology but also to ensure fairness in the supervision and conduct of matches. Video referrals though introduced in the last Champions Trophy Tournament in Melbourne last year; it is for the first time that this technological advancement is used for post-review of an event captured on the camera to help the third umpire to arrive at correct adjudication. And this may have cost India dearly for Shivendra Singh got two-match suspension for his alleged assault on Fareed Ahmed of Pakistan. No one can defend an assault irrespective of the nationality or affiliation of payers concerned, both attacker and the receiver. It did raise a debate whether Technical or Tournament Director can take cognisance of an offence that eluded the attention of two umpires supervising the play. Technical Director explained that it was well within his rights to ensure the fair play guidelines are strictly enforced and safety of player on the field guaranteed. Earlier, there were no cameras and hence no video referrals. Cricket started it and hockey has followed. It is not long ago that the previous International Hockey Federation chief, Breda Els Vriesman had ruled out the possibility of introduction of third umpire or electronic umpire saying the FIH trusts its umpires and honours their judgement on the field. This is not the first decision of the previous regime to be over ruled by the new set of office-bearers of the FIH. While Breda Els Vriesman wanted hockey to become a more spectacular sport, she wanted the Rules Board to amend rules so that disruptions in the game because of umpires’ interventions be minimised. At one stage, it was argued that actual playing time in a 70-minute game of hockey was seldom more than 37-42 minutes. Breda Els Vriesman did succeed in reducing unnecessary interventions by umpires by making basic changes in the rules governing free hit, kicking the ball, turning, shielding or screening of opponent, etc., etc. Even offside rule was given a go by. Breda Els Vriesman also wanted another major change in taking of penalty corners. She thought too much time was lost between award and taking of penalty corner. Players would run to sidelines to get instructions from the side benches. This correspondent followed all matches on the fourth day yesterday. Interestingly, average time taken after award of a penalty corner and push from the goal line takes 50 seconds. In case there are successive awards of penalty corners, the second award would consume about 25 seconds. The maximum taken yesterday was 67 seconds when Canada got its only penalty corner against Germany. Germans took 55 seconds to take their penalty corner. When New Zealand got its first penalty corner against the Netherlands, it took 62 seconds to take it. The Netherlands took 50, 35, 53, 49 and 51 seconds in five penalty corners recorded by this correspondent. In a couple of cases when the umpires took time out, that has been subtracted from the actual time taken in taking a penalty corner. For example, in one case, umpire had taken seven seconds to clear a foreign object from the eyes of a defender in the New Zealand-the Netherlands match. In the Argentina-Korea match, the average was 49 seconds while in case of a successive award, it was 27 seconds. Imagine how much time may have been lost when Australians took 13 penalty corners in their opening game against England. Time is mostly lost when the players go for safety gadgets, including face masks as well as abdominal guards. A game that is mandated to be played along the surface has, of late, been allowing more and more aerial play to become more spectacular. ???
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Championship at the National Stadium here today. This was Australia’s second victory in three matches and they have now pumped in 19 goals and conceded three.
