Rupinder rap stuns Spain
Tokyo, July 27: Dragflicker Rupinder Pal Singh scored a brace as the Indian men’s hockey overcame a demoralising defeat in the previous match to cruise past Spain
3-0 and inch closer to a quarterfinal berth at the Tokyo Olympics here on Tuesday.
Drubbed 1-7 by Australia in their last match, India produced a spirited performance against world No. 9 Spain and scored through Simranjeet Singh
(14th minute) and Rupinder Pal Singh (15th and 51st) to record a comfortable win in their third Pool ‘A’ match at the Oi
Hockey Stadium.
India had earlier defeated New Zealand 3-2 in their opening fixture. Spain, on the other hand, are yet to register a win in the competition.
Spain drew 1-1 against Argentina before losing 34 to New Zealand.
The Indians will next play reigning Olympic champions Argentina on Thursday.
For any team it is always tough to recover from a morale-shattering loss within a day, but India looked more organised and sorted against Spain on Tuesday.
Despite the win, India’s chief coach Graham Reid said the team needs to work upon a lot of grey areas, like conceding penalty corners, ahead of their remaining matches.
Manpreet Singh’s men played high pressure hockey from the word go and dominated the possession in initial 10 minutes even though they failed to create any real scoring opportunities.
In the ninth minute, India came close to breaking the deadlock but Simranjeet’s deflection from skipper Manpreet Singh sailed over the goal.
Spain slowly and steadily got into the groove and secured their first penalty corner in the 12th minute but wasted the chance.
The Indians mounted number of attacks in the final few minutes of the game and the ploy bore fruits when Spain’s defence was caught off guard by Amit Rohidas’ pass and an unmarked Simranjeet just tapped the ball into the goal past Quico Cortes.
Experienced India goalkeeper P. R. Sreejesh, who had a nightmarish outing against Australia, had a brilliant game as he showed good reflexes to pull off some fine saves.
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