The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : France rallies to hold India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004

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Sport - Hockey

France rallies to hold India

By K.P. Mohan

NEW DELHI, DEC. 28. India led 3-0 and then allowed France to come back into the second Test match. Three penalty-corner conversions, two of them in the last 10 minutes, by Frederic Soyez, made it honours even as the Frenchmen wound up their short tour on a satisfying note on Tuesday.

The Indian team had reasons to be satisfied as well as upset. For a change, it played attacking hockey and reaped the rewards. That must have given coach Jagbir Singh some satisfaction, keeping the overall defensive attitude of the team in recent times in perspective. But then the defence gave away crucial penalty corners, the one that fetched the equaliser being literally gifted as the French umpire, Xavier Fenaert `upgraded' a free hit into a short corner for the way the Indians argued.

Like on Monday, the Shivaji Stadium drew a sizeable crowd this day, but unlike the previous day, the fans were happy for the major part of the match as India went in search of goals and was up by three by the third minute of the second half. Arjun Halappa, the livewire in the frontline, struck twice while Tushar Khandkar scored the third.

The half-line was allowed time to settle down on Tuesday and that made a great deal of difference. The combination of V.S. Vinay, Bimal Lakra and Prabodh Tirkey were persisted with while Sandeep Singh, though he would have been of great help for the two penalty corners India earned, was stuck on the `bench'. Nitin Kumar and Vivek Gupta were brought in as additional half backs from time to time.

With the half-line, especially Bimal Lakra, backing up the attacks, the Indian frontline functioned a lot better than the previous day. Halappa opened the scoring in the 10th minute, dribbling his way into the circle and hitting through the net from a difficult angle. Umpire Fenaert had to consult the other umpire, Suresh Bhatia, before ruling that it was a goal.

Deepak Thakur, back in his element after an off day on Monday, and Halappa joined forces for the second goal in the 28th minute. On a counter attack, Thakur relayed the ball to Hari Prasad who sent Halappa away on the right. Thakur, sprinting furiously and almost out of reach when the final pass came, managed a brilliant shot as he went sprawling only to see the goalkeeper padding. But Halappa was on hand for the rebound.

Thakur set up Khandkar for the third goal on resumption and India looked well on way to a comfortable victory. But the home team had not reckoned with Soyez's expertise with penalty-corner flicks. To some extent, the inexperience of goalkeeper A. C. Kuttappa also mattered during the penalty corner defence. Devesh Chauhan was indisposed and the coach did not have any other option.

The French defended well in the second half when Hari Prasad and Khandkar carried out a few abortive attacks. Halappa tended to tire easily and the rolling substitutions only contributed towards breaking up the attacking rhythm of the Indians. Towards the close France was on the lookout for the winner, forcing a penalty corner from which Kuttappa blocked Soyez's weak attempt.

In the end, both sides might have had a few things to say about umpiring. Obviously, the French were not amused by some of Bhatia's decisions just as the Indians felt that Fenaert might have been a little too harsh. The question is, how did the IHF settle for the Indian-French umpiring combination for an international while sticking to the `neutral' concept in the recent India-Spain series?

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