Our Men and Women win the heart with heart-warming draws

Indian men and women staged remarkable comebacks, and scored their equalizer late in the second half to win their respective matches against much stronger rivals here in Perth in the second day of the Lanco International Super Series Hockey 9s.

Ravi Pal Singh helped India to draw against Pakistan 1-1 in the much-hyped Pak match whereas Soundarya silenced the home crowd with her aerial goal for the same scoreline.

Waseem Ahmed trapped a rebound off goalie Bharat Chetric to gently push the ball , but faster than Chetri’s attempt to fall to his right and save it. The ball glided past. The Indian equalizer did not take much time, came within 50 seconds.

Rajpal sent a straight pass to Rai Pal who was standing at the top of circle, he turned a bit and hit hard the ball with his reverse hand even as he was falling on the top circle line, The ball was hit so hard it did not give otherwise inform goalie Imran Shah any leeway, except to look at the goal haplessly.

India need not have waited 11 minutes in to the game for its game, had only Danish Mujtaba’s first minute forehand shot – which deserved a goal – entered the cage, but alert Imran took it on the pads. Shortly later, Yuvraj had a god send opportunity to move the board early in the game, even as the ball rolled close to goalmouth in indulged in dribbling and lost the control of the ball which moved and crossed the baseline,

Youngsters Yuvraj and Mujta are not the ones who came close to scoring, but experienced Sunil and Tushar are also the culprits especially the latter. After Sunil’s powerful shot was blocked by Imran Shah, Tushar got the rebound and hit hard but only on the side netting. This is the best shot that did not go to the goal, indeed.

If Chetri was at his best in the first half, his counterpart in the Indian team PR Sreejesh came even better. He made manipulating Waseem, a hero with his superb goal earlier, turn otherwise for his team. He took the hard-earned stroke, took it from the 25-yardline in the one-to-one face off with Sreejesh, but the latter surprised him with a fast interception, cleared hard, the ball rolled past opposite goalmouth and crossed the semicircle line.

On the other hand, in the second of the four matches played on the second day, Indian girls put up a heartwarming show to steal a point from the hosts, who in the first half seemed over-whelming.

After Religh tapped in a melee, the transformed Indian girls in the second half, traumatized their famed rivals with a superb goal that would have made any forward proud. Its Vandana Katariya who did all the spade work for the Hyderabad’s Soundarya to capitalize. Vandana sent a reverse shot fro top of circle line, which rose, and Sondarya too raised her stick above shoulder to gently direct the ball into the right corner of the netting. It was a dramatic goal. Otherwise, its almost Aussies who dominated every department of the game.

The crowd today was almost double, making it a happening day here; strictly speaking its women who stole the show silently though men’s will be talked about for long.