Whoever blinks first will lose advantage

For the coming Test series against Holland, we have recalled Gagan Ajit Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Devesh Chauhan and Dilip Tirkey — the latter is also the captain of the side. We have also retained 7-8 players who played at the Azlan Shah tournament like goalkeeper Kamaldeep, full backs Harpal and Xalxo and half backs Ignacius Tirkey and Vikram Pillay. This is a very good side with lots of potential.

Although Dhanraj Pillay is a player of immense importance to our side, we have some very good forwards like Gagan Ajit, Prabhjot and Baljit Singh Dhillon, who have proved their metal in the past and scored goals for us.

This three Test series between India and Holland is of immense importance for both teams, as both will be competing at the Olympic Qualifiers in Madrid next month. There is no better way to know the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents than to play against them. While we will be very eager to learn the variations of how the Dutch take their penalty corners, they in turn will try to pick up a few tricks of our skills.

Playing such quality European teams at the international level will help us learn a lot and improve our standard of play.

Teams like Holland are very good at set play — good passing and positioning — and always producing top-quality penalty corner experts. This side already has quite a few top-class players and someone like Taekema will always be very dangerous.

India, too, has players like Dilip, Baljit Dhillon and Len Aiyyappa who are adept at taking drag flicks. Dilip, though, is more of a hitter.

We played Holland last at the Champions Trophy where we lost 3-4 and are playing them after about 5 months. They have come here to play a series after almost 20 years and in my view should not have any problem adopting to the conditions here in Hyderabad as the climate here is nice and cool and the first two matches will be played under lights.

The first match will not be very easy for either team to win. We must not make many mistakes in the defence and should avoid giving away penalty corners. The teams which commits fewer mistakes will win.

(Gameplan)