It was a bittersweet end to the short bilateral Test series for India against Germany in international hockey's return to Delhi as after holding the three-time world champions to defeat in the second game having dropped the opener, lost the series on the penalties, when it was decided that it would eventually pick the winner. India commendably came back well after disappointing six quarters - four on Wednesday and two in the first half on Thursday (October 24), to score four goals in the seventh, the third for the day as the hosts pretty much killed the game in those mad 11 minutes.
India scored one more in the fourth quarter, with Sukhjeet, who opened the account for his side, finding the net again, before the Germans fought back with a couple but the hosts took the game 5-3 eventually. Naturally, the head coach Craig Fulton was proud of the effort. Talking to the reporters after the game, Fulton mentioned that the team is playing well just that they couldn't convert it 24 hours ago but was relieved that they got it right on Thursday.
"We are playing well, we just had to put it together and today we did that. That was really good. It's a good team. It's just that what we couldn't do yesterday we did today. Sometime when you want it to happen but it doesn't," Fulton said.
"We played well yesterday but weren't that sharp but today we improved and were full of energy. We scored some really good goals and the younger players contributed so that was also heartening." Fulton mentioned that getting captain Harmanpreet Singh back to drag flicking to nail those PCs, where they erred on Wednesday was key and once they got that piece of the puzzle right, the ride got smoother. Harmanpreet scored on consecutive penalty corners in the 42nd and 43rd minutes to first help India get into the lead and then extend it before Abhishek expanded it even further.
"Really good PC conversions by Harman. We just needed to get our set pieces right and we knew we will start getting the momentum," Fulton added.
Fulton was even more elated with the fact that the likes of Mohammed Raheel, Arjun Lalage and Vishnukant got their opportunities and did well.
