Morale-boosting win for India

Down 0-2 in the Test series, the Indian camp must have got a shot in the arm after today’s win. Against a combined Pak side comprising only four national players, the fighting spirit shown by the visitors was heart warming.

Twice, they rallied from a goal’s deficit to equalize 2-2 and scored just before the half-time hooter to surge ahead.

A goal in the initial minutes of the second session saw the Indians jump to a 4-2 lead but Pakistan XI pulled one back in the dying minutes.

Outside left Harbhajan Singh scored two more goals for the Indians, one of them coming from a penalty-stroke, while captain Dhanraj Pillayand inside- left Sameer Dad got a goal each. Asif Bajwa, Muhammad Sarwar and Ijaz Rasool scored for the Pakistan side.

Indian coach Baskaran took the opportunity to try out three untested players, goal keeper Jagdish Ponappa, centre-half Anwar Khan and left-back Dinesh Naik. The Indians rested defender Lazarus Barla and goal keeper AB Subbaiah.

A fresh formation was tried out in the mid-field with Anwar coming in place of Thirumal Valavan, who played as left-half in place of Ramandeep Singh.

Anwar took some time to settle down but soon had the mid-field going. However, Naik and Ponappa were far from impressive. Even Altaf-ur-Rehman, who was given a full game today as Baskaran wanted to rest Brojen Singh who was injured in the Rawalpindi match, struggled to impress the coach and the manager.

The star forwards — Dhanraj Pillay, Sabu Varkey and Mukesh Kumar — played half a session each. While Dhanraj, who played withdrawn today, took the field in the first half, Sabu and Mukesh played in the secondhalf.