Sardar Singh celebrates 150th cap with a win

By Sudheendra Tripathi

MUMBAI: It was an eventful day for India hockey team skipper Sardar Singh. On a personal front, the strapping India midfielder turned out in national colours for the 150th time for India. While on the professional front, the Indian hockey team qualified for the Champions Trophy semifinals for the first time in eight years.

Now, India, who will face champions Australia in the semifinals, have a good opportunity to clinch a medal in this prestigious tournament for the first time in three decades.

The win is a memorable one for the Indians for a variety of reasons. For one, they were rank outsiders and were not expected to win a single group match, leave alone making it to the semis. The other extremely joyous development was the fact that despite surging ahead as early as in the 13th minute (Nithin Thimmaiah being the scorer), India held on to their 1-goal cushion right till the end. India have in the past on several occasions squandered and subsequently lost the match in the dying minutes of the game.

India coach Michael Nobbs in a post match interview admitted that his team were average but the defenders did an extremely fantastic job.

“We seemed to have found our rhythm right from the first game. The midfield and defence played extremely well,” India’s young rising star from Mumbai, Yuvraj Walmiki told ToI from Melbourne.