MADRID, 3 March 2004 — Asian hockey giants Pakistan and India, both on a recovery curve, began their campaign to make the cut for the Athens Summer Olympics in contrasting style here yesterday.
In icy conditions at the Club de Campo, Pakistan got off to a winning start with a 4-2 defeat of Canada in the Olympic Hockey Qualifiers, but India failed to collect full points against the Belgians when they were held to a shock 1-1 draw later in the day.
India was expected to win easily over 14th-ranked Belgium but the European side refused to be intimidated by its higher-ranked opponents and India must now beat Malaysia tomorrow as they seek one of the seven remaining tickets to Athens.
The Belgians took the match to India with extensive use of long passes to counter India’s short passing game.
India lacked options with its two penalty corners in the first half, relying on Dilip Tirkey to hit in the absence of the injured Jugraj Singh recovering from a car accident last year.
Len Aiyappa flicked India’s third corner over the bar 10 minutes into the second half and failed to make any flick on India’s fourth corner but succeeded with India’s seventh corner attempt, flicking high and to the left of Cedric Degreve in goal.
In addition to the seven penalty corners, India had only four shots on goal in the match.
India’s Baljit Singh Dhillon received a suspension six minutes from time and Belgium capitalized on the extra space with a field goal created out wide on India’s left side defense. The center from Maxime Luycx came off the pads of Devesh Chauhan for Charles Vanderweghe to backstick in from two meters out.
“This is a crucial match we should have won,” said India’s coach Rajinder Singh. Belgium’s coach Giles Bonnet was delighted with the upset. “I was pleased to take a point today but there were too many penalty corners against us.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan showed not such problems as they ran the Canadian defense ragged with some probing runs. The second seeds led their Pool B opener 4-0 but conceded two goals in the dying moments of the match.
Pakistan were given some nervous moments when the Canadians kept them at bay in a barren first half but once again star penalty corner marksman Sohail Abbas lifted them by striking true twice with his trademark drag flicks to swing the match Pakistan’s way.
Pakistan appeared a bit sluggish and erratic in the first session but made a forceful recovery in the second half in which it scored four goals within a span of twenty minutes. “Today the team played in the way that I like them to play and that is a good sign,” said Pakistan’s Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans.
The 4-2 triumph came after Pakistan’s top rivals for the title, the Netherlands came back from one goal down to thrash South Africa 5-1 in the opening match of the tournament.
Pakistan were under pressure during the most of the first half in which the Canadians not only managed to stop their higher-rated rivals from scoring but also came very close to taking the lead in the match.
Salman Akber, the fast-improving Pakistani goal-keeper, twice came under full-blooded Canadian attacks in the first ten minutes but the Lahore youngster stood firm saving both the attempts.
Pakistan wasted four short corners and a penalty stroke in this session and looked increasingly in danger of dropping a point .
Canadian coach Gene Muller said the plan was to mark Sohail as they could ill afford to allow him space to shoot his flicks freely. “In the last three matches against Pakistan we conceded four goals on 20 short corners which is a very good record. That’s why we were confident of stopping Sohail from scoring,” said Muller.
With Canadian goalie Michael Mahood rushing Sohail into early strikes, the Pakistanis had to resort to indirect attempts off the short corners and earned a penalty stroke off their third short corner in the 29th minute.
However, Sohail’s push was too high and Pakistan had to wait for the second half for the goal rush.
Sohail began the scoring with a low short-corner push three minutes into the second half and it was followed by Kashif Jawwad’s clever connection off a Ghazanfar Ali assist just two minutes later.
Sohail hit his second in the 51st minute coming off a lightning flick and rookie forward Shakeel Abbasi made up for a couple of missed chances when he scored the fourth following a stunning solo effort in the 58th minute.
Ken Periera and Paul Wettlaufer added respectability to the Canadian scoreline with goals in the last two minutes.
Earlier, Poland recorded the first upset of the competition when they surprised Great Britain 2-1 in Pool A.
Britain trailed during most of the match which was dominated by the supremely fit Polish side.
Poland went ahead in the 45th minute through Tomasz Choczaj but Britain got the equalizer when Danny Hall scored off a short corner. However, Poland struck again three minutes from the final whistle with a short corner goal from Tomasz Dutkiewicz.
Defending Olympic champions the Netherlands conceded an early goal before routing South Africa 5-1. Both sides were locked 1-1 at half time but the Dutch finally got their act together to take home maximum points.
Pol Amat scored the first hat trick of the competition to help hosts Spain record a huge 6-1 victory over Japan. New Zealand gave their hopes for Athens a lift with a 1-0 win over Malaysia.
