India avenge Olympic shock, down Poland

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">kuala lumpur: it was one of those rare days in the 10th men''s world cup when asian hockey had its tail up and wagging. never mind that the majesty and magic of old surfaced only sporadically. leading the way were the indians, presenting a polished performance in the first half, packing off poland 4-1 on pitch two of the bukit jalil stadium here monday.</div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: 0"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="0" width="23.3%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" middle="" background-color:="" cccccc=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" class="whitehead">read this story in...</span></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" white=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="C://images//spacer.gif" alt="C://images//spacer.gif" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" white=""> <div class="Normal"> <img src="C://DOCUME~1//ADMINI~1//LOCALS~1//Temp//cms_files//2781062-open//images//bullet.gif" alt="C://DOCUME~1//ADMINI~1//LOCALS~1//Temp//cms_files//2781062-open//images//bullet.gif" border="0" /> <br /><a href="http://www.navbharattimes.com/articleshow.asp?articleid=2786552">hindi</a><br /><br /><br /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">if the indian victory was more or less expected, then japan''s triumph over england certainly wasn''t.the margin maybe have been narrow. but it was deserving. and malaysia continued the asian assault, rallying from a goal behind to put minnows cuba, the pan-american champions, in their place with a 4-2 win. however, late in the day, australia arrested the asian ascendancy when they hammered out a 4-2 victory over sydney olympic silver medallists south korea. but it seems certain that these two teams, australia with 18 points and south korea with 15 points will go through to the penultimate round. only malaysia could catch up on points with korea. but they face the near-impossible task of needing to beat poland by a whopping eight-goal margin. moreover, the koreans require only a draw against england to squash the hopes of the home side. with monday''s win, india moved up to fifth spot on the league ladder. they will have to beat australia in their last league match on the morrow if they hope to move into the classification bracket for placings fifth to eighth. it was refreshing to see the indians play attacking hockey right from the start. yet, there were some strange combinations tried out. for starters, sukhbir singh gill, who has shown the tendency to play the ball back into his own half, was played as an attacking centre half, ignace tirkey as the other centre-half and thirumalvalavan as left half. thankfully, it did not prove disastrous and it was corrected later. but the attack did move well. and the hard-working and tireless dhanraj pillay gave the indians a rousing start. he was quick to retackle polish defender eugeiusz in the fifth minute and though his quick try came off goalkeeper marcin pobuta''s pads, the ball rolled straight into the path of daljit singh who put it firmly away. the indians began waxing stronger. and the pressure on the poles came from the right flank where pillay and skipper baljit dhillon repeatedly found the space to surge forward. and, following a fine move down the right, baljit saini relayed to pillay who was stick-checked by a defender as he was about to score from close. baljit dhillon made no mistake from the resultant penalty stroke. though it was not so pronounced as in the early matches, the indians did look vulnerable to the sporadic counter-attacks that the poles fashioned. those swift counters, built on precise passes, not only earned them as many as six penalty corners as compared to a solitary award for the indians, but also enabled them to pull one back. that was in the 23rd minute. artur mikula made a darting run down the left from around 35 yards out and centred into the indian penalty area. the tirkeys - dilip and ignace - surprisingly seemed leadenly rooted to their spots, failing to intercept the cross which tomas choczaj turned home with a diving deflection. goalkeeper divesh chauhan did not have even a ghost of a chance. however, india regained the two-goal advantage almost instantly. india were awarded a free hit deep on the right flank and saini''s crisp drive was trapped and swept between the uprights by prabhjot singh. almost on half-time, jude menezes was hurriedly brought in to defend a penalty corner as chauhan had to leave the field after having sustained a cut on his elbow in a melee that led to that award. and he did well to palm away a high drag flick by zbigniew juszczak. the change of ends saw a definite drop in the quality of play. it turned rather mediocre with india holding on to the edge. saini picked up his second booking before pillay''s aggressive play almost gave india its fourth goal. the forward sizzled down the left flank and, intercepted by a defender, he retackled, gained possession and swiftly cut into the goalmouth. however, his reverse flick flew over the bar. but dhanraj could not be denied. he received a short pass from saini two minutes from the end and, in his inimitable style, veered past a defender and the goalkeeper before flicking into an open goal. japan, playing crisp and clever hockey, were served well by their skipper takahiko yamahori. he slammed in a brace of goals in the space of six minutes to put his team high in the saddle. england managed to pull one back five minutes from the end through dave mathews. cuba stunned malaysia when they twice took the lead by the quarter hour. but the malaysian, egged on by a noisy crowd, took control thereafter and smoothly sailed through. anwar aziz and fairuz ramly hit equalisers to goals by jose rodriguez and yuniel rodriguez before kuhan shanmuganathan fired a shot to take malaysia through. for the aussies, jeremy hiskins scored twice after scott webster and troy elder had given them an early lead. song seung-tae and jung-seon lee reduced the margin for korea. </div> </div>