Thakur makes deft hands count

A pointer to Thakur’s state of mind – besides the hustling that he kept at,throughout the first two quarters – was when he swung the stick in one almighty heave to send the ball soaring into the stands in frustration,after a near-miss. After that,he remained pivotal to most incisive runs that Punjab launched on the Marines goal,twice showing power and class in his stick-work as he fended off triple-teaming and breaking free in the midfield to disperse passes to his team-mates.

His success came at the faggest ends of one of Punjab’s short corners – Marines captain Adrian D’Souza having kept them out twice before with no cause for panic. However in the 56th minute,Thakur started and finished a move to which Punjab’s part-time drag-flicker was only incidental. Rushing to the goal-mouth,Thakur was at hand to tap the ball in to take the 2-1 lead. “Our field goals are our plus points. But today we tried another variation in penalty corners since we haven’t been too succesful at them,” said the lion’s share scorer of the total 22 that Punjab have scored at the half-way stage of the league. The variation involved him pouncing on the close-ranger and lending it direction – a daylight contrast against Mumbai,who managed to fumble half a dozen from similarly proximal ranges.

Not enough credit is given to Thakur,when he stands like a poacher close to the goal and flicks what comes his way from others sprinting into him,to sound the board. But against the Marines,the Punjab ace had done enough running and setting up in the first two periods to earn a brace for himself,his second – the winner – coming in the 63rd minute in similar fashion when he parked himself at an acute angle and nudged one in with the deftest of stick curlers.

Prabhjot Singh limped out and reappeared on the sideline with an ice-pack wrapped around his back-thigh. And Gagan Ajit Singh – considerably rotund – and manning the right forward flank with something slightly speedier than a stroll,completes the famed trio — India’s erstwhile and much-celebrated strike-force when India last appeared at the Olympics. But while WSH has shown most veteran players in poor light with struggling fitnesses and sluggish movements on the field where nobody can be hidden,Deepak Thakur showed enough spunk to his actions as he had in his spoken words.

Still,he was appreciative of his opponents of the day who while adopting a playing style – that coach Andrew Meredith has been attempting to drill into them – where off-the-ball running and criss-cross passing pushed the Punjab Shers to the hilt. “It wasn’t easy,just that my chances came through. We had a name to protect since we are former internationals,and people expected attacking hockey from us as forwards. So I’m glad we could give it to this Mumbai crowd,” Thakur said. At a time when the hockey-watching public has been getting accustomed to watching their India stars play with attacking flair,and not hold back,the Mumbai crowd – it seemed like a partisan Punjab support – were treated to similarly no-holds-barred hockey from the new WSH table-toppers. Deepak Thakur was at the fore-front of this stomping of the defensive bastion. He didn’t have a point to prove – but enough rage and acceleration to manage to make one,anyway.