It is not surprising that India got off to a losing start considering they were playing a highly charged Australian team whose speed in attack was a telling factor.

Looking at the Indian line up I have to say they had their best players available for the moment. And to be honest they did have several good chances to score which could have made a difference to the finally tally. For example in the fifth minute Rajpal Singh has all the time in the D when Tushar Khandkar put him through. But his attempt went with. Two minutes later the Aussies were in front. This is the kind of start that teams dread when playing the stronger ones.

Today’s game involves a lot of speed play and teams must keep their defence tight and avoid making mistakes. India was not so fortunate in the early stages where the back line of Dilip Tirkey, Vinay, Sandeep Singh and Prabodh Tirkey were a little casual in their play. Looking back at the Commonwealth Games I would also have to admit the play by India or their style had not changed much. I did expect a more forward display especially with coach V. Bhaskaran who is fond of an attacking play.

Gagan Ajit Singh was not in the game much in the early stages. But Tushar, Arjun Halapa, Shivender Singh had a better game as they played it wide. But at times they did not have the numbers in front to help them. In this respect the Indian midfield did not contribute much as they lost control to the Aussies early.

Viren Rasquinha and Vikram Pillay need to provide more forward passes and also go higher up to create opening for their forwards. I do not want to sound critical but I have to say that if the Indians had played more speedily and also made space in the forward line then they could have done much better.

There was effort all round. But Australia like always played with such consistency and their basics were so good that you just do not see them failing. India had a good patch in the 25th minutes when Brent Livermore had been sent to the sin bin. They could have taken greater advantage of the numbers.

Tejbir Singh, a substitute, gave them more options in the front line. I think the forwards will improve with each match. The starting game is always a difficult one even for us Malaysians. Tomorrow we will be playing India and I’m sure they will be highly charged.

They have good skills and are difficult to beat when they attack in numbers because of their ability to control the ball well. They didn’t do that yesterday and the release of ball in the run of play was missing.

For some reason Asian teams like India, Malaysia and Pakistan have a difficulty trying to cope with the Australian style where their speed play from deep defence has the ability to turn into attack quite fast.

I was not surprised that Indian goalkeeper Bharat Chetri had a good game. I don’t think he can be blamed for the first two goals at all. They were soft goals due to lapse in defence.

Overall I think we can only see India improve. I can only judge them from what i had seen in the Commonwealth Games. So I expect them to be a much-improved side against us as the match against Australia has shown them some of the weak areas they have to plug.