India didn’t score when they had to: Dutch star Bovelander
MUMBAI: “I think you only have to score twice in the semi-finals or in the final. They all think I made a 100 per cent out of every penalty corner. It’s not true. Why they remember me is that I made some goals when it counted.” Nearly 22 years after Dutchman Floris Jan Bovelander hung up his hockey stick after helping his country clinch an Olympic gold at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, the legendary drag-flicker summed up India’s showing at the Asiad as simply as he would sound the boards in his heydays.
While both the Indian men and women’s hockey teams were favourites to clinch gold, the former could only manage a bronze, the latter came back with silver. However, in the preliminary round the men’s team had pumped in 76 goals in five matches. It was a world record. No team has scored that many in the group stage of an international tournament ever.
However, those numbers hardly helped in the final analysis. And neither did those numbers tell the other half of the story — India could convert only 26 out of 62 penalty corners earned.
“In the Asian Games, the first (round) matches don’t count. You have to score when it really counts. You have to win against (teams like) Indonesia and (whether) its 20-0 or 30-0, it doesn’t count… You need to win the big matches… Matches against Malaysia, Japan, Pakistan… Maybe they thought (it to be) too easy after all these wins. I was also disappointed with the women’s team not winning gold,” Bovelander said in an exclusive interview. With just two years left for the Olympics, Bovelander said that the Asian Games might be a one-off for India.