Olympic Hockey: India needs a better midfield

New Zealand 3-1 India

1 Midfield woes continue to bother India, with too much space given in the middle a culprit.

2. Many entries in the rival citadel came to absolute naught with the hard hits into the circle all being trapped by New Zealand defenders. This tendency which Coach Brasa tried very hard to curb will only reduce by changing of personnel.

3. New Zealand’s stout defending & very good midfield play & their 2 PC conversion led to a relatively easy win.

4. Indian forward line is completely bereft of ideas around the opponents 20 metre line & continues to struggle —plus the midfield & forward line are in a “hard crack into the circle” ie route 1 ball— mind set that is hurting them. My fear is unless you change the players in the future this is what you are going to get —“what you see is what you get.”

The lack of defensive skills really hurt the Indian team not in so much the goals that they gave up as the midfield control they gave to the Kiwis. All over the park the individual 1v1 defensive battles were won by the Kiwis , even Sardara had the ball stripped from him on multiple occasions. Sunil was a shadow of himself for the same reason & needs to pass much more often & sooner with a strong tackling opponent on him. Tendency of the Indians majority of the time try to make reverse stick plays , either receive ball on the reverse (i.e. weak side) side or try & make a reverse stick move played into the hands of the Kiwis who made sure tackles to stop the attack . A few attacks towards the end of the game from the strong side made them look pedestrian proving the above point.

Overall Game

Entry into opponents 20 metre line / midfield rivals half encroachment/ Circle penetration was nearly equal but again the quality of Kiwis penetration was much better.

Many promising moves by the Indians at the top of the circle came to naught because of pedestrian non precision play. The quality of play by the Indians has definitely gone down. The 5 PCs they got were poorly handled & executed, except for the first one.

As the competition carries on the defensive mistakes will continue to hound India , particularly at the midfield level. The defending against the PC is also off since the first runner is struggling to reach the PC battery. Does not help if Chetri in goal does not have a clue against the PCs & continues to struggle & was rightly replaced by the coaching staff.

Midfield play continues to be poor defensively with the middle not being plugged, reason being the outside half backs are not coming inside when the opponents have the ball. Just for reference the Pakistani midfield playing a similar style as India is a revelation with solid midfield control & tackles. Wasim Ahmed & his positioning is a treat to watch.

The play was not switched from outside to inside with speed as was done against the Dutch & that lead to the Kiwi domination. Combination play with interplay between the forwards & half backs was deficient and too far and few in between.

Forward Play

Overall was quite poor. Not sure whether it was the quality of the defending, or was it lack of ideas in the rival circle that did the Indians in. They could not engineer even if few PCs, suspicion being their lack of patience did them in. Maybe a few more dribbles against the opponent would have helped. Today their timing was off with one touch too much leading to their opponents effectively tackling them. Shivendra continues to struggle & needs to receive the ball on his strong side more. Sunil was hemmed in always & needed to get more into open positions. Dharamveer was a non factor & looked like he did not belong on this stage. In summary, not a very good display by the forward line.

Midfield play

The redeeming feature is the attacking play orchestrated by Sardara. The 2 yellow cards by him & Manpreet were needless & hurt the team when they needed to press.

He did make a lot of capital moves to Gurbaj in particular but the latter always “messed up “a very promising move. Again there were missed passes galore as also defensive lapses continuously. Putting together a string of 3-4 effective passes in the midfield was at a premium leading to a very easy giving up of possession of the ball.

Danish was better today but played with limited vision in being stuck to one flank or the other. Gurbaj tends to disappoint being brilliant at times but poor most of the others. His defensive skills are severely lacking. Manpreet was ok, considering his in experience. Uthappa is being played in the wrong position. He is a traditional centre half and should be played at that position.

Defense:

Continued to play well within itself considering it is regarded as the weak link for India. Tackles were solid and positioning was good. If only the midfield could help them out a little bit. Goal keeping continues to be a problem and one wonders whether the Sardara-Chetri captain controversy is not without merit since Chetri has been so pedestrian and what is the use of having a captain if you are not on the pitch to act as a captain. Again this smacks of administrators and selectors playing favorites and acting against the best practical interest of the team. Defense against PCs is decidedly poor.

Summary:

Poor game by India. Considering the personnel on the pitch this is probably going to be the best you are going to get. It is unfortunate that Mr. Nobbs has been not given a free hand & has been dealt this “hand” by the selectors. India needs a better midfield.