The eight-time Olympic medallist finishes at the bottom after losing to SA
The Indian hockey team looked to have been caught in quick sand. The more it tried, the deeper it went into the pit as the eight-time Olympic gold medallist ended 12th among as many teams with a 2-3 loss to South Africa in the classification match at the Riverbank Arena here on Saturday.
In bright sunshine and brilliant weather, in front of a near capacity crowd that was quite appreciative of every move, the Indian team tried to salvage some pride, but it was South Africa’s better resolve and dynamic scoring that carried the day.
After starting with a mishap when Manpreet Singh was injured on his head in the third minute and needed medical attention and rested through the first half, it was South Africa that held the upper hand.
South Africa struck the first blow in the eighth minute when Andrew Cronje tapped the ball home from close to the right post following a move initiated by captain Austin Smith.
The Indian team responded with a goal five minutes later, when Sandeep Singh converted a penalty corner, for his second goal in the tournament, as he dragged to the right of the goalkeeper in sounding the board. The team, despite being disjointed, pressed hard to gain the lead but the South African goalkeeper was able to competently deflect the shots by Danish Mujtaba.
With three minutes left for half-time, defender V. Raghunath was given a yellow card suspension for kicking the ball, and that proved costly.
With a minute left for half-time, South Africa regained the lead, when Timothy Drummond flashed it past a helpless Indian goalkeeper. India managed to force two more penalty corners midway through the second half, but Sandeep Singh was unable to beat the goalkeeper.
The agony was complete for India when Lloyd Norris-Jones struck a reverse hit that sailed into the roof of the goal off a defender’s stick.
Embarrassing
There was some embarrassment when Birendra Lakra’s trouser was torn from the side during a tackle, spelling an overall poor quality package, but India managed to end on a better note with Dharamvir Singh sweeping into the goal when the ball rolled in his favour near the right side of the goal. It was his second goal of the tournament.
India had scored eight goals in all in the tournament and two of them came in the last match.
Though it had started with a 2-3 defeat to the Netherlands, the Indian team had slithered to the bottom following defeats against New Zealand (1-3), Germany (2-5), Korea (1-4) and Belgium (0-3) before it made a final bow to South Africa.
While coach Michael Nobbs excused himself by saying that he would talk on returning to India, captain Bharat Chetri conceded that the team was unable to rise to the Olympic standards.
“This was a much higher standard than what we had experienced in other tournaments.
“We needed the confidence to play a high quality game against the top teams. The crowd was very supportive for all the teams,” said Chetri, quite upset with the overall fare.
Coach Mohammed Riaz stressed that the team had missed a lot of chances, and said that the senior players were retained in the squad for their rich experience, and that a call would be made soon by the authorities back home, about the composition of the team for the future.
“The whole tournament we played pretty bad. Only one match against Holland was good,” said Riaz, quite candid in his assessment.
India had failed to qualify for the Beijing Games, and had finished seventh ahead of Korea in Athens.
South Africa was elated with the victory. Coach Gregg Clark said that the team wanted to end with a victory and was happy with the team’s performance. He felt that the team was drained emotionally and physically after the tough qualifying process.
Keywords: olympic Hockey, 2012 London Olympics
Why our sportsmen are far below the International Standards in all
fields of sports? What is the root cause for our failures in spite of
training under expert foreign coaches? The general opinion is that our
sportsmen lack infra structures that developed countries have to
improve the games standards. But that is not acceptable any more as
sportsmen from many poor countries with no basic facilities had fared
better than their counterparts from developed countries. The following
two factors may be responsible for our humiliating shows. 1. Our
Sports Bodies have not raised the standards of the games to the
international levels or left with no choice they, perforce are
relaxing the rigid scales to allow our Sub-standards compete in
international arena. 2.Our sportsmen,on their part, care less to work
hard to lift their standards to international levels.
Unless these two issues are examined closely and addressed, we
should not search for India in Medal Tallies in International games.
The Indian Hockey team captain should not wait until playing 6 olympic
games and loose them to realize the World standards are very high.That
is simply ridiculous.Teams prepare for the Olympics for years and give
their best and fight for the best.
In Indian context we take everything for granted.Some players are
happy being in olympics team.Just like Cricket 'one triple century' in
one test match and for the rest of the life that player is part of
Indian Cricket team even he scores 'duck' in all the rest of matches
he plays.Similarly just being part of olympic team is not enough but
the attitude and courage of players to fight and give one's best
decides the difference between standing on the podium and finishing
last in all playing countries.It is time to move over from the
'Chaltha Hai' attitude and give one's best in any sports.Because
representing one's country is the biggest honour and no one can take
it for granted.Hoping better sense prevails!!!
Wake up India! You will not get much support from the media. In fact I would blame the mess on the media. Bring some legislation to contain the spread of this disease called 'Cricket'. Save Hockey for God's sake!!!
Captain Bharat Chetri and Coach M Nobbs both must bear the burden with the players.The team selection was poor, training was below level, physical fitness was low level. The selection panel missed the boat. The Indian team lost and the sports Minister should bear the resposibilty for the oversight. One billion people and not a single world class team. It says a lot - where did they go wrong? The Indian newspaper created a hype adn the sports MInister or his people too. It takes a different breed to win.
ALL THE BEST,
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