Bhubaneswar: Bruised and battered by back-to-back defeats in the Champions Trophy hockey, India's experienced drag-flicker V R Raghunath said the hosts are keen to put up their "best show" in their last Pool B tie against World Cup silver medallist the Netherlands on Tuesday.
After the narrow 0-1 loss against Olympic champions Germany in their tournament opener, India slumped to a 2-4 defeat against Argentina at the Kalinga Stadium on Sunday.
India squandered their hard-earned lead on two occasions within seconds against Argentina, to slid to the bottom of their pool.
"The mistakes which we did yesterday (Sunday) we tried to rectify it (Monday). And we have planned to put up a very good show, our best show which we can put up tomorrow (Tuesday). We are also prepared mentally for the main target i.e. quarterfinal. So we are prepared for that whoever we will be facing," Raghunath told reporters on the eve of the game.
"We are really disappointed about yesterday's (Sunday) performance. We had a very friendly meeting today (Monday) and we will make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes which we did yesterday (Sunday)."
While India's forwardline created chances against Argentina on Sunday, the defence was nowhere to be seen and was caught napping by the Argentine's fast counter-attacks.
"We conceded goals in 30 seconds twice. We should have hold on to the lead but we have worked on that area today (Monday). We had a combined meeting. This happened after a long time. Our defence has played wonderful in the last one-and-a-half year.
Good it happened in the pool stages because we can rectify the mistakes on that area and be prepared for the quarterfinal," Raghunath, who himself is one of the experienced defenders of the team, said.
"We will try to put up a good show in the defence. The main thing is that there should be no lapse in the defence."
India captain Sardar Singh on Sunday gave a lame excuse when he said that the boys got little carried away by the crowd support and went for goals, leaving spaces in the backline. But Raghunath completely disagreed with his skipper.
"No, absolutely not. I think the boys should be excited and thrilled. That really doesn't matter. It doesn't affect much. At the end of the day we have to stick to our plans and try to give our personal best," he said.
Comments
0 comment