Only miracle can prevent India's early exit in hockey

Melbourne, Mar 19 (UNI) Having botched up their chances in the first two preliminary matches, a desperate India's hopes of making it to the knock-out stage of the men's hockey competition of the Commonwealth Games here rests on a miracle on the field and prayers off it.

India need to beat Trinidad and Tabago by a margin of 10 goals tomorrow and then follow it up with an eight-goal victory over South Africa in their last league assignment while hoping and praying that Malaysia does not score heavily against South Africa and concedes at least four goals against Pakistan.

Going by their performance in the previous two matches against Malaysia (1-1) and Pakistan (1-4), it is curtains for India in this competition but there are still some die-hard optimists who are hoping for a miracle but miracles don't happen so easily or so frequently.

Indian hockey has been on life support for a very long period and that it still figures on the international arena is a miracle in itself but to stretch that more is asking for too much.

There is nothing wrong with it because there is hardly anything right left in Indian hockey. The players play according to their whims and fancies and not to the needs of the team.

They made heavy weather of their draw against Malaysia, a match they should have won, but missed chances galore. Against arch rival Pakistan, they were simply outplayed in every department of the game.

The way forwards -- especially Tejbir Singh and Deepak Thakur -- played, it was no surprise that Pakistan's defence was hardly tested especially in the second half. Barring Rajpal and Didar Singh, other forwards looked as they were just going through their motions.

Viren Rasquinha was totally off colour and that created problems in the midfield and in the absence of Harpal Singh and Dilip Tirkey the defence looked vulnerable.

The Indians just could not score against Malaysia and against Pakistan they just could not defend. The team neither has the defence nor the attack to win matches and is depending totally on the midfielders for its progress.

The Malaysians played to a plan and then Pakistanis capitalised on weak areas of the Indians who had no clue of their neighbour's tactics and strategy.

''We had carefully studied every Indian player during the recent series and we knew our and their grey areas, we attacked their weak points,'' said Pakistan coach Asif Bajwa after the match.

Indian coach Rajinder Singh summed it up saying, ''What can you do if experienced players miss good chances. At this level of competition when even half chances are rare to get you miss open goals.'' The Indians at the moment are a demoralised lot, but they need to pull up their socks as they have nothing to lose against lowly Trinidad and Tobago and for that matter against South Africa. There only hope lies in believing in themselves and attacking to score big victories. The forwards, instead of trying to get penalty corners, should go for scoring.

They have failed to earn even the penalty corners for their side so far.

Though their rivals are not very formidable but they can create problems for them because an untrained enemy some times proves more difficult to handle then a professional one.

The Indians are clutching to a straw for their survival, waiting for a miracle to happen.

UNI HSB PM AY VP1207