After starting their FIH Hockey Pro League 2021-22 campaign with back-to-back wins, the Manpreet Singh-led Indian men’s hockey team ended their South African stay with victories against France and South Africa. Will compete. Weekend.
In the opening match, India beat France 5–0, where Harmanpreet Singh (21), Varun Kumar (24), Shamsher Singh (28′), Mandeep Singh (32) and Akashdeep Singh (41) were ranked 200th. International matches, goals scored. “It was good to start the campaign with a win. We had a bad first quarter but after the first quarter we played a better game. We played for our structure and were converted by the opportunities we created,” Manpreet said while talking about his first match against France, who are building their team for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.
Manpreet believes that France are an unpredictable team and they can surprise any team on a good day. “It is important that we do not take them lightly when we play them on Saturday. We saw what France is capable of when playing against the Netherlands. The match went into a shootout after a 2–2 draw and they eventually lost in the shootout. Even when we played against him, he created good scoring chances.”
In India’s second match, where they won 10–2, freshman Jugraj Singh (4′, 6′, 23′) scored a hat-trick of goals and Harmanpreet Singh (2′), Abhishek (12′), Gursahibjit Singh (24), Dilpreet Singh (25′, 58), Mandeep Singh (27) scoring in India’s win. Though it was a win by a huge margin for India, Manpreet said that there were many aspects that the team could have done better especially in the second half. “Definitely the highlight of this match was the newcomers in the team, both Jugraj and Abhishek, who scored goals and created opportunities. But when we saw the videos of this match, we felt that as a team we could have done better in the second half. There were flaws in the defence, which allowed South Africa to come back into the game and we didn’t carry the same pace with which we started the match,” Manpreet said.
“We have to play all four quarters consistently and he will be focused on doing that in the upcoming two matches against France and South Africa. It would obviously be nice if we can end the tour with winning points.”
India are currently third in the pool standings after Netherlands and Belgium who have played four matches.
On February 12, India will take on France at 9:30 PM IST and on February 13, they will play hosts South Africa at 9:30 PM IST.
The matches will be live on Star Sports Select 2 and Star Sports Select 2 HD. The matches will also be telecast live on Hotstar.
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