India Beat Arch Rivals Pakistan To Win The Bronze Medal In Hockey At Asian Games

India won their Asian Games hockey bronze medal match against arch-rivals Pakistan 2-1 on Saturday, but they will return home with heavy hearts, having missed the golden opportunity to secure a 2020 Olympic berth.

India were the title favourites here, but they were left to play for the bronze after a shock defeat against Malaysia in the semifinals. The win on Saturday saved them the ignominy of returning home empty-handed, but they would be desperate to seek answers to the debacle in the semifinals.

AFP

Saturday's match was a must-win match for India. The opponents did not matter, nor the history attached to their rivalry. They came to the turf with the single objective - returning home with a medal. They had a better game than they had in the semifinals; it was just good enough to pip Pakistan to the post.

India scored their first goal in the first quarter and the second in the last quarter. In between, they fought hard to keep the Pakistani strikers at bay, who showed signs of improvement under Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans, who was in charge of India for four years - first as high performance director and then as coach.

Akashdeep Singh got a field goal in the 3rd minute while Harmanpreet Singh converted a penalty corner in the 50th putting India 2-0 up. Muhammed Atiq reduced the margin in the 52nd minute to raise hopes for Pakistan. But India held strong.

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Starting the match on a positive note, India had their opponents on the mat for the most of the first quarter, though Pakistan bounced back stronger in the second. Keen to take their opponents by surprise, India resorted to a lot of aerial balls in the match. Though it failed to produce any goals, it was enough to force the Pakistanis to rework their strategy.

India's show gave coach Harendra Singh something to cheer about and he praised the players for showing character in the match after the shock defeat in the semifinals.

"India deserved the victory. They played their hearts out. We did not come to Jakarta to win this medal. But we could not have gone back empty-handed. We fought hard for 60 minutes. Both the teams deserve applause for showing character in the match," said the coach, still recovering from the failure to book tickets to Tokyo.

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The coach said it was tough for a team to make a comeback like India did on Saturday, but was glad that his players managed to pull themselves out of the rut. "I am happy that they came stronger after the loss and won the bronze. It's a thing we are seeing after a long time. I have been to Olympics and to World Cups and it's very difficult to come back from such defeats," he said.

"People have lost everything pondering over their past. I am glad that they came out of that and did it for India today."