Demons banished, India get ready for the knockouts

Paris: The last time the Indian men’s hockey team played Australia in a multi-sport event, a silver medal felt sore after a 7-0 hammering in the final of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The last time it played Australia before Friday, a five-match series Down Under felt like an endless loop of misery before a 5-0 rout put an end to it while opening plenty of questions heading into the Paris Olympics.
If you were India, tasting defeat after defeat, you’d dread facing Australia. India served up a delight instead fronting up to them at a stage where it mattered most.
India’s 3-2 victory against the Aussies at the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, a historic venue that hosted athletics events the last time France held the Olympics a decade ago, brought its 2024 Paris Olympics on the fast track on the turf. Playing the kind of hockey that was slick and sprint.
Just the victory by itself, a first against Australia at the Games after more than five decades in which Indian hockey has lived a lifetime of glory to gloomy days, is significant. And so is India finishing second in their Pool B by virtue of the result that pits them against the third-best placed team in the opposite Pool A.
Yet more noteworthy is the manner in which India turned up and played on, and the stage at which they chose to do so. It takes the reigning Olympics bronze medallists flying into the knockouts with belief from the final group stage match after a somewhat stuttering start.
The scoreline of India’s first and last group match was the same: 3-2. The show, however, was hardly one. Craig Fulton’s team was tentative against New Zealand, conceding an early goal before needing a last-gasp penalty stroke from Harmanpreet Singh to barely eke out the win.
Against Australia, they were up and running from the get-go and kept going till the final hooter. Abhishek (12th minute) and Harmanpreet Singh (13th, penalty corner) got them a two-goal lead in the first quarter and despite Australia getting one back through Criag Thomas (25th), India went into half time with a spring in their step. Out they came stepping up again, Harmanpreet raising his right arm after converting a penalty stroke two minutes on. And although Australia struck with five minutes to go, India held on with poise.
“We started (the tournament by) winning, and we decided we were going to finish with a winning match. We put them under pressure and the pressure was so good from the frontline. Our motto was to score the first goal. We did it and I think after that we managed very well,” Harmanpreet said.
They managed it by playing the type of hockey that hasn’t come out too often under the Fulton reign and style woven into this team. From a compact, structured and defend to win gameplan, India were fluid and fancy moving forward. The press was sustained, the counters were purposeful, the passing precise and the execution in the circle efficient. Abhishek’s strike from the top of the circle, his typical hit turning around from his back to the goal while clearing his left leg, was a case in point. So was Manpreet Singh’s brilliant pass from the midfield into circle that earned the penalty corner for Harmanpreet to convert.
“Our positioning with the ball was really good today. Everybody knows that the Australians come full press, so our positioning and scanning had to be good day, and the way we managed the ball,” Harmanpreet said.
From that nervy beginning that needed back-to-back late Harmanpreet strikes to salvage a win and a 1-1 draw against Argentina, this neat finish to the group stage comes just at the right juncture. Peaking at the right time is an underrated aspect in tournament play, and India are doing just that. The two last-gasp reliefs were backed by a 2-0 win against Ireland and a close 1-2 defeat to toppers Belgium where India weren’t way off the mark.
They were bang on the mark against an Australian team that doesn’t look quite its intimidating self in this Olympics (they lost 2-6 to Belgium). India will take that into the knockouts, and possibly a template to remain on that mark.
“In the pool matches, you have options. Maybe you win, or you lose, you have the next match. In the quarter-finals you don’t have any (further chances), so you have to put your best foot in front. You know there’s no room to make mistakes,” the captain said. “So, every second you have to be sharp, and whenever you get the opportunity, you have to make sure you are finishing well. It is that mentality we have to keep in our mind.”
India did all of that against Australia, a team that has haunted them for decades at the Olympics. Now for them to do that with no further scrappy slips to afford, and for a target to achieve.
“The main tournament is starting now,” Harmanpreet said. “The quarter-finals, the semi-finals… we’ll have to give our best in that.”