India eyes consistent show against Netherlands

India dished out a superlative performance on Saturday to hold the mighty Germans to a 1-1 draw. The draw holds greater significance for India as it came on the back of a disastrous outing in the tournament-opener against Argentina.

If in the 0-3 defeat against Argentina India were lacklustre and looked out of sorts, against the Germans India produced a near-perfect game to dominate the match for a majority of 60 minutes.

Unlike the match against Argentina, the Indians showed more urgency and attitude from the word go against Germany. The Sardar Singh-led midfield produced a stellar performance to create numerous scoring opportunities for the forward-line, which was missing in the first match.

Sardar himself has led by example in the two matches while Manpreet Singh showed hunger and was instrumental in setting up goal for Akashdeep Singh against Germany.

The backline too played a solid game against Germany. But the form of India’s fowardline should be a cause of concern for chief coach Roelant Oltmans. Ramandeep Singh and Talwinder Singh were impressive in the first two matches while Akashdeep played well in patches. To add to India’s forward-line woes, SV Sunil, who did not play against Germany, is a doubtful starter as well as he is yet to recover from a knee injury sustained during the game against Argentina. “He (Sunil) got hit on the knee. You never know how long it will take but I expect him to recover and be back during the tournament,” Oltmans had said after Saturday’s match.

Oltmans was full of praise about his wards’ performance on Saturday but sounded caution ahead of their final pool game against world no.2 Netherlands. “We had more chances (against Germany). The team really had done very well. I said before that one defeat is not a disaster in a tournament like this. The good thing is we created chances, against Argentina we didn’t and that is the big difference,” he said.