Raipur: The Indian team suffered a 2-1 defeat to world champions Australia in the second test match of the three match test series in Raipur today. Today’s encounter against Australia was the first ever international hockey match played at the newly inaugurated Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel International Stadium, Raipur. India will now meet Australia in the last match of the three match series on Monday.
The game began with a fierce attack from the world champions, but the Indian goalpost was beautifully manned by PR Sreejesh as he along with the Indian defenders did not allow the Australians to convert any of their attacks. In the 23rd minute while the Indian forwards were on a counter attack, India drew first blood through a field goal from Devinder Valmiki, giving India a 1-0 lead. The first half there after witnessed heavy attacks from both sides but none of the teams could convert anything to their favour, and the half came to an end with the score at 1-0 to India’s favour.
The second half began as expected with Australia pressing very hard to score but the Indian defenders displayed their class restricting the visitors from scoring. The Indians defended the game beautifully till the 46th minute, but one error followed by another in the 47th and 48th minute from India led to two successive goals from Chris Ciriello and Aran Zalewski in Australia’s favour. This turned around the match and saw the visitors leading by 2-1. India tried hard to come back into the game there after but the world champions guarded their side way to well to let the Indian’s in.
“We played a good game, but a small error in the last quarter cost us dearly. We are up against the best team in the world and we only take back learnings from this match. We have been attacking well, but our defence needs some attention and hopefully tomorrow we should put up a better show,” said Director High Performance and Chief Coach Indian Men Team, Roelant Oltmans.
India will play Australia in the last match of the series tomorrow at 18:30 hrs at Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The match will be telecasted LIVE & Exclusive on Star Sports.
