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Hockey shows life but it's just too late
When the experts had decided to write the obituaries of Indian hockey and wrestling, the Indians came up with some performances, writes Ajai Masand.
Two sports that hurt India most during the Games showed some flicker of hope in the end.
On the last day of the competitions when the experts had decided to write the obituaries of Indian hockey and wrestling, the Indians came up with performances that reduced their sense of hurt to an extent.
India got bronze in wrestling and more importantly for hockey aficionados, they overcame the disappointment of not qualifying for the semifinals by crushing Malaysia 4-0.
It was the first time that India had been knocked out of medal contention.
They however, avoided further embarrassment by putting it across the South-East Asian nation.
Raghunath, a man for the future and an emerging talent was the pick of the Indians as he scored a brace while Rajpal Singh and Gurbaj Singh chipped in with a goal apiece.
Raghunath scored in the 13th and 61st minutes of the game, while Rajpal netted one in the 41st minute. Gurbaj’s goal in the 64th minute signed off the day for India.
India dominated the game right from the word go and it looked as though the Indians were a team possessed.
They kept coming at the Malaysian defenders with fast counter-attacks. Yet there was this feeling that India converted fewer opportunities than they should have.
Skipper Dilip Tirkey finally had something to smile about and looked contented with the team’s performance.
“The team played really well today. The defence was good, and I need to commend our goalkeeper for the splendid show he put up. He saved three penalty corners from Malaysia. Raghunath also played extremely well,” the skipper added.
When asked about the approach of the game, Raghunath said that his team had set a target for the classification match.
“We were deeply hurt that we couldn’t qualify for the semifinals. It was the mental aspect that had let us down. We had set a target for this game. We had to prove that we are a team that was better than our placing suggests,” he said.
Meanwhile, on the mat, the Indians, who had just one bronze to show from the wrestling arena, added one more bronze when Sushil Kumar defeated his Kazakh opponent, Leonid Spiridonov 3-1. The Indian dominated right from the start as his opponent was overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, Palwinder Singh Cheema was also to play for a bronze medal in the 120 kg weight category.
Sushil had moved to the bronze medal round after winning his quarterfinal bout against Arslan Khutaliyev of Uzbekistan but he then lost to Takafumi Kojima of Japan in the semifinals.
Cheema beat Kyrgyzstan’s Urmat Mustapaev by a fall in the first bout before losing to Iranian Masoumi Valadi Ferdin in the quarterfinal. He then got past Iraq’s Shaheen Mohamed in the repechage.
However, two other freestyle wrestlers — Vinod Kumar (55 kg) and Anuj Kumar (84 kg) — failed to reach the medal rounds.
