We improved our defensive game which led to Asian Games success: Gurwinder Chandi

Gurwinder Chandi

New Delhi, Oct 11 (IANS) Addressing their defensive frailties was the key factor that helped the Indian men's hockey team reach their goal of winning the gold medal at the 17th Asian Games at Incheon, forward Gurwinder Singh Chandi said Saturday. India ended a 16-year hockey gold drought in the Asian Games, beating Pakistan 4-2 on penalties, the match having ended 1-1 after extra time.

The team's gold medal performance earned them a direct berth to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Pakistan had earlier beaten India 1-2 in a group league match of the competition.

"We didn't commit the mistakes we made in the group league match against Pakistan. We concentrated on our defence and contained their attack and that was key to our win in the final," Gurwinder said, on the sidelines of a felicitation programme organised by the Oil and Natural gas Corporation (ONGC) to honour their 40-member Asian Games contingent, here.

"We were over aggressive in the group league match against Pakistan, made the mistake of committing players upfront in numbers, as a result our defence became weak and we conceded goals on the counter-attack."

He identified head coach Roelant Oltmans' attention to the team's defensive travails as the turning point in their performance.

"He concentrates on defence. He likes to keep the backline tight, focuses on getting the shape right. In the league games, defensive duties of forwards was not to his satisfaction. He analysed videos and showed us where we were going wrong. We rectified the mistakes in the semi-final and the final," the 24-year old said.

"He also told the forwards to help the protective unit, instructing us to focus on their off-the ball play. He prefers attackers to re-tackle and mark opponents man-to-man," the Jalandhar-born player said. Gurwinder said with this win, the team will be more confident of their medal chances in the 2016 Olympics.

But he felt they needed to play "tougher" teams to attain more self-belief.

"The more we will play tough teams, the more we will be confident and our performance level will increase," the Delhi Waveriders player said.

India will play a four-match test series November 22-25 against Australia at Perth and then move to Melbourne to participate in the 34th Champions Trophy from Dec 1-9.