Pakistan trounce India

Man of the match inside-right Mohammed Sarwar and winger Mohamed Irfan combined well to give the Indian defence a harrowing time, and even as the Bhopalis waited for a fightback after Pakistan took lead midway through second half, demolition man Suhail Abbas walked into the picture to leave the Indians nursing their wounds.

Though the Indiansstarted on a bright note, they soon started looking a disjointed side, as both their flanks failed to get going. Then, an injury to left-half Ramandeep Singh in the ninth minute – he twisted his right ankle in a tackle – forced coach Vasudevan Baskaran to bring in Thirumalvalavan. The Tamil Nadu midfielder is competent as a centre half, but struggled on the left flank, which inevitably gave Pakistan much leeway on the right, and forced the Indians into errors. "Mispassing cost us the match," the dejected coach Baskaran admitted after the rout.

The Indians played a defensive game in the first half, and did not give the opponents much room to manouevre. The defensive approach had a lot to do with another indifferent display by the forwards. Outside-left Rajesh Chauhan was starved for the ball throughout, while right winger Prabhakaran – who was also pulled out due to injury – and his replacement Ravinder Singh failed to trouble the Pak defenders. Baskaran even tried Kamal Horo in the second session, butDanish Kaleem and Sohail Abbas held strong.

Unfortunately for the hosts, local hero Sameer Dad had a poor game as the pressure of performing in front of home supporters took its toll. Gagan Ajit Singh had Indians all fired up when he found the target after making his way past three Pakistanis to stun goal-keeper Ahmed Alam. It was a classic strikers’s goal, as Gagan first deceived Waseem Ahmed to charge into the circle and then dribbled past the defenders to let loose a screamer.

Pakistan’s equaliser was the handiwork of captain Atif Bashir, who seized a loose ball inside India’s 25-yard line and started a chain of passes that ended with Mohd Irfan’s flick into the cage.

The rest of the first session was a listless midfield tussle, and it had a lot to do with the teams having had little rest. The Thursday evening flight by which the players were supposed to arrive here was diverted to Bombay due to inclemet weather. The caravan arrived here only at 12.30 with just about two hours to go for theencounter.

In the second session, Pakistan scored an opportuistic goal when Md Irfan connected a hard hit by Nadeem that beat goal-keeper Jagdish Ponnappa.

Suhail then got the chance to make amaends for two misses off penalty corners in the first session. He first deceived Ponnappa with a low, hard push and in his next try found the net with is characteristic sizzling drag flick. The teams now move on to Hyderabad for the third Test on February 8.