Top Story

  Editorial

  Metro

  Kashmir

  Business

  Sports

  Scoop

  Societal

  Health

    Cartoon

MADRID (Spain): Four penalty corner conversions from four attempts by Sohail Abbas inspired Pakistan to a 5-3 win over India in Pool A of the men's Olympic qualifying field hockey tournament.

Abbas put in his first corner conversion after just two minutes with a second 26 minutes later before Deepak Thakur clawed one back for India after 33 minutes with a juggled shot into goal from a long corner centre by Gagan Ajit Singh.

A minute later Rehan Butt hit back with Pakistan's only field goal which put them 3-1 ahead at the break.

Abbas converted his third corner six minutes after the break and India came back with two goals in the next three minutes.

India's midfield created the scoring chances for the forwards by splitting Pakistan's defence with long passes into space for Baljit Singh Dhillon and Gagan Ajit Singh to score, and suddenly it was 4-3 with twenty six minutes to play.

India replaced Devesh Chauhan in goal after Abbas struck his third and Bhowath Chetri was sent in to face the fastest corner flicker in hockey. But Pakistan regained their composure of the first 20 minutes to hold off the individual efforts of India's forwards who ran the ball into Pakistan's defence only to be dispossessed.

India conceded a fourth penalty corner with 8 minutes to play which Abbas again converted with a low drive into the left pocket to put the match out of India's reach at 5-3.

"Five goals in a top international game can only make me happy as a coach. I don't mind how we get the goals," said Pakistan coach Roelant Oltmans.

But he had complaints about the quality of the pitch which was relatively dry after the watering system broke down and was watered before the match and at half time with a single leaking hose. "The players in such an important international game should be playing on the best pitch in the world and not a pitch which was not wet enough," Oltmans added.

India coach Rajinder Singh said; "I'm happy with the way the team played, and that we scored three field goals today. The only thing I have to worry about is the penalty corners. "The forward and half line played well together and the half line did some wonderful set plays.

"Our first rusher (at the penalty corners, Vikram Pillay) is injured and we wanted to rest him today as he has a slight hamstring problem. That put some pressure on the other rusher," Rajinder said.

In earlier matches, Malaysia defeated Canada 3-2 and New Zealand drew with Belgium 2-2.