Sydney 2000 was the best chance for us to get into the Olympics medal bracket after a long drought of two decades. A win against Poland or else a 2-2 draw was all that we needed, in order to qualify for the knockout round. Eventually the 1-1 draw turned out to be a short-lived dream of 15 minutes and 40 seconds to be precise. After drawing the first blood after 17 minutes 29 seconds into the second half with a peach of a penalty corner goal from Dilip Tirkey, it was really shocking that we could not defend our goal in the last two minutes. A dream that never turned true as Poland’s Tomasz Cichy did what Zimbabwe’s Henry Olonga had done to the Indian cricket team at the last year’s World Cup.
It was an encounter more of mental toughness under pressure conditions. Remember, India entered the match in a do-or-die situation. Backing from vociferous support from the Indian community in Sydney, our team appeared confident and cautious at the outset. Instead of 5-3-2-1 which they played against Spain, they had Riaz as linkman and adopted 4-4-2-1 from the start. In the fifth minute Mukesh had a golden chance to fetch India the lead but his hit went wide.
Poland applied a lot of pressure on the Indian defense. The entire Indian forwardline went into the defensive mood which was not a good sign. Both Mukesh and Sameer received caution cards from the umpire. A quick ball from Dhillon put Sameer in possession of the ball but the latter buckled under pressure and hit straight into the goakleeper to save. In the next minute, Mukesh came out with a feeble hit at the goal again.
Rain pouring heavily almost throughout the match had its toll on the Indians. Poland, used to playing in such conditions, always had three men upfront which our defense some heart-stopping moments. Poor tackling by Ramandeep gave Poland their first penalty corner.
Luckily the ball was not stopped neatly with Dhanraj intercepting it. Dhanraj also tackled Poles’ second short corner well. Loose marking in the defense got them their third penalty corner, but luckily the ball was deflected from the defender’s stick to the bar.
I think the coaches had a different game plan for the second half. India started with more players in the forward line. The inexperience of the newcomers under pressure-cooker situations appeared to be a matter to bother. A freehit from Baljit Saini into the circle after Dhanraj was fouled in the ninth minute earned India its first penalty corner. And the second penalty corner resulted through a good interception by Thiru followed by a good counter. But both went abegging. Tirkey’s first time shot off the second penalty corner was stopped well but Dhanraj shot the rebound again straight into the goalkeeper.
Dhanraj was well marked by the Polish defenders. He was playing very defensive and hardly went into the attack. The fourth penalty corner brought cheers in the tensed-up Indian camp. Dilip Tirkey’s first time shot was a carbon copy of his goal against Spain, his direct hit was stopped giving him the rebound and Tirkey made no mistake hitting hard into the net.
India had a chance to further their lead when Mukesh hit wide an opportunity provided by Dhanraj on top of the circle. India started to grow in confidence and began to attack more just before being reduced to 10 men as Mukesh was given marching orders with 11 minutes to go.
India had their tense moment when Poland forced three successive penalty corners, but all of them went waste. With six minutes left and rain pouring heavily the 10-men India underwent some anxious moments as the Poles started attacking more vigourously.
With three minutes to go Dhanraj, instead of keeping possession of the ball preferred to cross the ball to Deepak Thakur and the resultant counter-attack — for which the Poland are known for in this tournament — resulted in Poland forward Tomasz Cichy beating Ramandeep in the midfield and his first angle hard shot was not covered by Jude. This was inexperience play that resulted in scores getting tied with the game-clock reading 68:09.
With two minutes left India knew that their dreams of qualifying for semis had shattered and they were becoming emotional. It was really sad we could not hang on to that slender lead for two minutes.
We should have crowded our defense instead of going for the attack which proved our downfall and turned out to be our tactical error.
Skipper Ramandeep Singh had a poor tournament. The bottomline is missed chances, poor defense by Ramandeep besides the inexperience of some of the forwards that can be reasoned out for our debacle. Today against Poles we failed with all 10 field goal attempts and converted only one of the seven short corners forced. It was a sad day for India, who should now look up and try to finish fifth which will help them qualify for the Champions Trophy.
I helped India regain the Asian Games gold after 32 years with m