Baljit Singh defends his strategy that misfired in the semis

India played somewhat a soft hockey against Malaysia much against the characteristic aggressive brand for which they are known for all along, with disastrous consequence.

The depending champions could not put on board even a token goal and thus crashed out of the final, losing the semis 0-2 on Thursday.

India’s cautious approach even surprised Dharmaraj, the rival coach, who said that he has never seen an Indian team was so defensive as was the case yesterday in the semis.

However, Indian chief coach Baljit Singh defended his approach and blamed under-preparedness and inexperience for the team’s failure to click in the semis.

Baljit Singh Saini, double Olympian, claims nothing wrong with this kind of approach.

“We normally are a aggressive side. It is entertaining, the crowd enjoy. But, what is the use pressing all the seventy minutes and then ending up exhausted and without scoring. It is essential to play different styles, say if Plan A doesn’t work, we resort to Plan B”.

“We wanted to go cautious against Malaysia because that was our considered plan”, he said.

“You see its all about scoring goals. We had our opportunities but did not capitalize and they had theirs, and utilized. This has nothing to do with us not having attacking style. We cannot play 70 minutes attacking hockey in every game”, he reasoned.

On queried whether this change of strategy is the outcome of lack confidence, he retorted, “Not at all. The fact is we haven’t scored and that’s it”.

He lamented the fact that his forwards failed to strike goals, and conceded this is one area he would devote to rectify the mistakes.

He further felt forwards inability bring enough penalty corners, thus denying adequate chances to flickers in Amit Rohidas and Sukhmanjit Singh.

“Yes, we did not get as many penalty corners as we would have liked to. I cannot blame our flickers who haven’t scored out of the three PC we got, but blame the forwards, for, they simply did not earn enough of penalty corners. The way we played we could have got more of them”, he went on.

“This is a raw team. These boys are playing together in an international outing for the first time. They need time to mature and show results. That way I can only say that I am not satisfied with the results we got here, but one cannot produce results within less than months from taking the coaching which is my case.

“I took over the team March 15, and I need more to produce a working and deliverable combination”.

Malaysians are producing results because they have the continuity in the last four or more years, with same set of players, coaches and support staff. That is what is required in order to bring desired results on the international forums,” the double Olympian asserted.

However it is fair to say that India played their best game today in Malacca, though boring and unyielding. Fitness and international experience are the areas Indians would like to concentrate in future.