A dominant performance against Canada notwithstanding, India would be facing its toughest challenge in the group stages of the junior World Cup here when it takes on England in its second game at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium on Saturday.
England had registered a 4-2 victory in its opening game against South Africa and India will be cautious as it looks to seal a quarterfinal spot with another win. The host, among the favourites to win the title, will also be keen to continue its good run against England after winning the test series against it a month ago.
Captain Harjeet Singh said the game against England would be completely different. “Your own performance also depends on the opposition. If the opponent is sharp and strong, you stay more alert. We are expecting England to come hard at us and we are prepared for it,” Harjeet said.
England’s two best performances in the tournament had come in 1997 and 2001 — fourth both times — which incidentally were also also the best outings for India, ending runner-up and then winner in 2001.
With four of its players having played in the previous edition of the tournament in Delhi, England will be hoping to make full use of its advantage. In comparison, India only has Harjeet and forward Mandeep Singh from the 2013 edition. However, the presence of defender and drag-flicker Harmanpreet Singh has been a big advantage given the youngster’s Olympic experience.
“Yes there is a difference in experience, but that doesn’t mean anything special. I played the last edition but Harman was there in Rio with the senior side so that has been a big plus. We keep asking him about how to handle the pressure and we also share our experiences. We are all very close and confident of our strengths as a unit,” Harjeet said.
Germany first to make quarters
Earlier in the day, favourite Germany became the first team to ensure a spot in the knock-out rounds with a 2-1 win against New Zealand.
Despite an equally patchy performance as in the opening game, the team did enough to get full points with its second win of the tournament, led by the experienced duo of Timm Herzbruch and captain Constantin Staib.
As happens against most top teams, New Zealand packed its defence and relied more on counters to try and score. Germany dominated, both in terms of possession and attempts to score, but was unable to break past the crowded Black Sticks’ defence. While Germany wasted its first penalty corner, Sam Lane put New Zealand ahead after earning a penalty corner of its own on counter.
It took a brilliant turn-and-shoot from Herzbruch to level scores in the 24th minute before Anton Boeckel scored the winner after being put through by Johannes Grosse from the top of the circle in the second half. “We did not dominate as much as we wanted to. We have qualified for the quarterfinals, which is a good thing. But, we should have done better,” a disappointed coach Valentin Altenburg admitted.
The results: Pool A: Argentina 1 (Tomas Domene) drew with Austria 1 (Oliver Binder); Pool B: Belgium 4 (Philippe Simar, Henri Raes, Alexandre van Linthoudt, Alexis Lemaire) bt Egypt 0; Netherlands 7 (Bram van Groesen 2, Thijs van Dam, Thierry Brinkman, Terrance Pieters, Daniel Aarts, Jorrit Croon) bt Malaysia 2 (Muhammad Zaidi, Amirol Arshad); Pool C: Spain 4 (Lucas Garcia 2, Marc Serrahima, Pablo de Abadal) bt Japan 1 (Atsushi Sugiyama); Germany 2 (Timm Herzbruch, Anton Boeckel) bt New Zealand 1 (Sam Lane).
