Indian hockey enters the crucial phase

Holders India, who made heavy weather of their win over a ragtag team from Hong Kong in their opener, have their job cut out as they need a big and authoritative victory over Japan in their second league match in the hockey competition of the Asian Games here tomorrow.

	INDIA AT THE GAMES TODAY
• Equestrian: Team & Individual Events (04:30hrs) • Men’s hockey: VS Japan Group-A (09:00 hrs) • Snooker: Team Event – Preliminary and PQF (12:30 hrs) • Boxing: All categories – Preliminary Bouts (05:30 hrs) • Judo: Men & Women – Preliminary & Repechag (10:30hrs) • Rowing: Single Sculs, Coxless Four-Oars final (08:45 hrs) • Shooting: Women’s 10m Air Rifle, Men’s 10m Air Rifle, Men’s 50m Pistol, Women’s Trap All Finals (09:30) • Squash: Men’s & Women’s QF matches (07:00 hrs) • Tennis: Men’s VS East Timor /Women’s VS Mongolia • Weightlifting: Women’s 58 kg final (11:30 hrs) • Volleyball: VS South Korea • Wrestling: Men’s 56 kg, 66 kg, 84 kg, 120 kg and Women’s 48 kg Preliminary rounds (06:30 hrs) RESULTS • India (Yasin Merchant and Rafat Habib) beat Hong Kong 3-1 to win the snooker gold in doubles event . • Ritwik Bhattacharya beats Liu Qiwen 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 to enter QF • Men’s light weight team (Mujeeb Rehman Kolakkodan, Ratheesh Kumar, Saji Thomas and Kasam Khan) entered the final of four-oars rowing event. • In women’s lightweight double sculls event, Jincymol Verghese and Monalisa Mohanty finished 4th with a timing of 8:10.81 sec. • T Muthu finished a poor ninth in the men’s 48kg category after lifting a total of 237.5 kg (107.5kg in snatch and 130 kg in the clean and jerk) Story continues below this ad

Though India came through as 5-1 victors over minnows Hong Kong, they lacked coordination and needlessly experimented with the line-up. It was incomprehensible to see three defenders being used when they should have attacked and got more goals. This could go down eventually to India’s disadvantage when the pool placing for the semi-final line up is drawn, as a clash against seven-time gold medallists Pakistan in the last four would be avoidable.

India have met Japan in every edition of the Asian Games since the inception of this sport at Tokyo in 1958, beating them on each of the 11 occasions, including seven semi-final clashes.

The key for a convincing Indian victory will be in the hands of forwards Dhanraj Pillay, Deepak Thakur and Gagan Ajit Singh who will have to show the free flow, flair and flexibility.

Leander to sit out

Star player Leander Paes may sit out of India’s first match against East Timor tomorrow in the team event of the Asian Games tennis due to a minor ankle injury he suffered during a practice session at the Guemjoing Sports Complex here today. The Indians, who won four bronze medals at Bangkok, are determined to improve their medal haul here, and it would all depend on the seasoned duo of Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi who appeared aloof even during the practice session.

Shooters join fray

Indian shooters, who do the bulk of the medal shopping for the country in international events, will begin their campaign here tomorrow hoping to improve upon their medal tally. The Indians had managed just three silver medals in the last Asiad in Bangkok but this time around the medal hopes will largely rest on Jaspal Rana, Abhinav Bindra, Anjali Bhagwat, Anwar Sultan and Sameer Ambekar all of whom were among the gold grabbers in Manchester.