Carvalho surprised by easy victory

Yesterday, goals by Sandeep Singh (13th), Prabhjot Singh (18th), Shivendra Singh (31st) and Dilip Tirkey (67th) set up the victory, their second in three matches.

Carvalho pointed out that by scoring more goals than they did, the Indians would have been on firmer footing, if the goal-difference come into play at the end of the league on Saturday in the event of a tie for placings.

“Keeping that in mind, it would have been far more satisfying had we scored a few more goals today. But then, I must thank the weather gods for giving us a dry weather and a firm pitch that suited our style of play. The ball rolled better than it did in our previous matches that were played in the rain,” he said.

Belgium drew consolation from Gregory Gucasoof’s penalty corner conversion (26th) as they slipped to their second defeat. India next play Argentina tomorrow.

It was Sandeep Singh who opened the account with a drag-flick conversion of the first penalty corner in the 10th minute. The Indians should have been up 2-0 almost immediately thereafter, but Prabhjot’s attempt from the right was deflected to safety by goalkeeper Cedric Degreve.

Prabhjot made amends in the 18th with an opportunistic goal as defender Thomas van den Black failed to cleanly stop a Roshan Minz hit from the right. Prabhjot pounced on the deflection and slammed to boards.

With the match heading to half-time, India came up with a swift counter-attack and Shivendra Singh dived to deflect the ball that came off Prabhjot’s stick to the boards following a terrible mix-up in the Belgian defence.