Despite his team doing extremely well at the ongoing 8-Nation Junior Cup in Kuala Lumpur Coach AK Bansal strikes a note of caution. “Yes, am happy we have three wins and a draw in the tournaments so far, but it does not guarantee a sure place in the final. We have to yet play three matches, starting from tomorrow (Wednesday) against Germany, then The Netherlands and in the last we have the hosts, Malaysia. We have to defeat any two of these teams to be sure of final. And, this is easy said than done as Germany and Holland are picking up the threads, they, in particular The Netherlands need emphatic wins to be in the final. They will pose stiff challenge to us ” he said in an exclusive chat with s2h.

With identical win-loss record and 10 points each, Germany tops the table and India comes second as the latter is a goal deficient.

Led by Gurvinder Chandi, the Indian team started the tournament with an emphatic 6-1 win over South Korea before posting the same score against the Kiwis. Third match, it was against Pakistan, ended in a thrilling draw. Coming to the field after a rest day, India overcame gritty Australia 2-1 on Monday. Today (Tuesday) is rest day. The team had a good dinner at the local Gurudwara and over all had a relaxing day.

Terming the India-Pakistan match the best so far in the tournament, Bansal said: “It was a befitting India-Pakistan final. They totally dominated us in the second half. They also could block our penalty corner attempts. We got seven of them, but could not make use of any of them. That day Sreejesh and Sameer Baxla could not take on the field due to fever, now they are ok for the challenge”

Though Bansal is happy his team could overcome Australia, he minced no words when he said: “ We managed to score twice in the last 15 minutes, otherwise it was a tough match as any Australian team would be in any given day”.

Bansal expects his boys will stay focused on the remaining job. When said it was long since an Indian team returned with gold, he had a hearty laugh as the answer, without committing anything from his mouth.