Where cricket may be a little disappointing to Indian fans at the moment, for all those national sport lovers, it has been a good game weekend for the Men’s hockey team. The Men’s Asian Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament in Ordos, China, has India playing almost error-free.

Asian Champions Hockey: 1-1 draw between India and Japan

Saturday’s game was against China where the score at the end of the game read 5-0 to us. This was the opening match and what an opening it was! The scoreboard pretty much summarized the whole match there. Gurvinder Singh Chandi, Yuvraj Walmiki, Rupinder Pal Singh, Rajpal Singh and VR Raghunath were those who scored. At least the fans got to cheer a Yuvraj in this game.

The whole team was whipped up in form and showed no mercy to their opponents as they rammed goal after goal throughout the game. The new coach, Michael Nobbs was particularly pleased with the game and expressed his happiness saying that it was just the game for an opener.

The first two goals were scored in the first half and the rest three in the second half. The players were on their toes and attacking ever chance they got.

Then there was Sunday’s game where India almost had the game to their control. Japan managed to even the score at the nick of time, making it a 1-1 game at the end. It would have been a second consecutive win for India after Gurvinder Singh Chandi scored, however Japan’s Shiokawa Naoto leveled the score after a goal in the 69th minute.

The first half of the game had both the sides threatening each other and taking control on the field almost equally but India did manage to score early in the game. After that there was a little skid in the group when Rupinder Pal Singh got a yellow card suspension for foul foot play. It may have been an accident on his behalf nevertheless it did happen.

It was silly mistakes that cost India the win, said the coach. He said that India missed three such opportunities to score where they could have dominated the game. Even though Japan played well, India should have score with the momentum of Saturday’s exquisite win over China. The Japanese players were fit and fighting all throughout the game and did not let go until the last minute. Nobbs looked particularly disappointed after the match.

India’s next game will be against South Korea which will take place on Tuesday.

Tags: Asian Champions Hockey, Asian Champions Trophy, China, Hockey, Japan, Ordos