Jan 28

Sundeep Misra
Monday, January 28, 2008

India seemed to have done its homework pretty well. The glaring errors it committed in the first Test were certainly avoided. And the few changes India did turned out to be correct.

The deep defence consisting of Dilip Tirkey and William Xalxo plugged the gaps in a manner only they could do. But the master stroke lay in bringing in Bharat Chetri as the goalkeeper, who put up a sterling show.

India, as has been the case in recent performances, rode on the brilliance of its forwards to script an emphatic 5-0 win over Belgium in the second Test at the SDAT-Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here on Sunday. India leads 1-0 in the five-Test series.

If Chetri, replacing Baljit Singh, was acrobatic and sharp under the bar, Tushar Khandekar reaffirmed his credentials as a forward of high standards with a hat-trick. Shivender Singh, Rajpal Singh and Gurbaj Singh made inroads into the Belgium defence with a series of raids.

There was hardly a dull moment in the match, though India could have done better in the first session than the 1-0 score-line; the goal came through a deflection of Birendra Lakra. There were doubts whether the ball did indeed touch Lakra’s stick, but umpire Amarjit Singh was clear in his mind.

Shivender did the spadework for India’s second goal. All Tushar did was to tap the ball home. Again it was the Shivender-Tushar combination that fetched the host its third goal; the latter dived to his left into the net. In between, Chetri, making a comeback into the team after six months, did an impressive job, padding away several goal-bound moves.

Belgium was not the half the side it was in the first Test. The defence was caught napping on numerous occasions. Thierry Renaer toiled hard but the net result was not much to write home about. Knowing the visitor’s penchant to fightback, India didn’t relax as it continued to exert pressure on the visitor’s defence.

Tushar and Rajpal completed the agony for Belgium, with fantastic goals. While Tushkar scored off a rebound off a penalty corner, Rajpal fired in a quick one five minutes before the hooter.

The third Test is on Monday.

The result: India 5 (Birendra Lakra 1, Tushar Khandekar 3, Rajpal Singh 1) bt Belgium 0.

(Courtesy, The Hindu)

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