Pakistan 3 Egypt 1
France 11 Canada 1
Malaysia 4 South Africa 3
Belgium 3 Chile 0
India 8 Poland 2
India did what was expected — qualify for the quarterfinals of the 2021FIH Men’s Junior World Cup, booking a berth from Pool B with a resounding 8-2 win over Poland at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Saturday, November 27.
But the smiles weren’t too exuberant and there appear to be some concerns ahead of a potential humdinger against Belgium, India’s opponents in the 2016 final.
Most concerning is the hamstring pull suffered by the outstanding Maninder Singh in the first half.
Then, there were question marks hanging over discipline and focus with three yellow cards handed out to Indian players – one of them captain Vivek Sagar Prasad – along with two green.
A third concern is the failure to maintain a clean sheet again when India looked good to do so with a 6-0 lead at the end of the third quarter.
The tendency for the defence to lose its shape is the fourth concern and it handed Poland the initiative during which they forced a spate of penalty corners and scored twice.
The hosts, who led 3-0 at half-time) scored five field goals and three from five penalty corners forced. Sanjay (one from a penalty corner), Araijeet Singh Hundal (one from a penalty corner) and Sudeep Chirmako scored a brace each with Uttam Singh and Shard Nand Tiwari (penalty corner) adding one apiece.
Poland scored through captain Wojciech Rutkowski in the 50th minute and Robert Pawlak in the 54th when India were a man short to yellow cards – Prasad in the 46th minute and Manjeet in the 53rd.
The other yellow went to Rabichandra Moirangtham in the 31st, who also collected a green in the 28th like his captain who did so in the 23rd minute.
The Poles appeared to take full advantage of the hosts’ reduced numbers to force four penalty corners in the final quarter before they achieved success on their seventh and last when Rutkowski scored to get his team on to the scoresheet.
India coach Graham Reid, however, was pleased with his boys. “Pretty happy to be honest,” he said. “We started well, put some scoreboard pressure on them and we started the second half well too.
“We did better with our opportunities and we’re happy with our last couple of goals. We have tried to work on our positioning and we finished pretty well,” the Australian said.
Looking ahead to the quarterfinal clash against Belgium, Reid said “We now have three days to prepare and analyze our game.
“We came as a team to watch Belgium play Malaysia yesterday and we are confident to go out and get a victory.”
Prasad reflected on the cards collected. “We will try to keep the cards down in the next match so that we have an 11 v 11 game at all times.
On the Belgium match to come, he said, “It’s going to be a full effort. They are a good team but we will draw up a strategy to counter their full and half-court presses.
“We are strong in counter-attacking and we’ll continue using it,” the captain said.
Poland’s captain Gracjan Jarzynski lamented his team’s failure to capitalize on penalty corners. “We should have scored more from those awards,” he said.
“We made simple mistakes in defence, but we also made lots of opportunities to score,” Jarzynski, added as he looked forward to the classification match against Chile.
Player of the Match Sudeep Chirmako said: “This was an important match for us because we had lost one match but we executed well today. Regarding the quarterfinal (against Belgium), it is very important as it is elimination. But we have a plan and we will try to execute it.”
Earlier in the day, France pulverized Canada 11-1 to finish atop Pool B and set a quarterfinal date with Malaysia.
India, who lost points in a defeat to France, finished second to bring on a premature clash with Belgium, pool A winners.