New Delhi: A quarter-three mayhem is what it took for hosts India to stamp their authority in the second match of the Bilateral series against Germany on Thursday at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi.
While India won the match 5-3 to level the series, German goalkeeper Jean-Paul Danneberg made sure his young squad went home with bragging rights by making decisive saves in the shootout to pip India 3-1 and claim the trophy.
Pressure on India
After losing the first game of the series, the pressure was on the home team to turn up and equalize the series. But it wasn’t until the second half that they turned the tide.
Once again Germany started the match with a goal in the first quarter as Elian Mazkour scored from a quickfire counter-attack in the seventh minute.
The reigning world champions won another opportunity to score in the 12th minute through a penalty-corner (PC) but failed to convert.
Though India had an opportunity to score in the 14th minute through a PC of their own, Danneberg denied them with a fine save.
In the second quarter, both teams had decent chances from penalty corners but they failed to execute with Germany holding on to a 1-0 lead at halftime.
The third quarter was when the tide turned as the Indian team decided to finally turn up in the capital city.
Youngster Shilanand Lakra played a beautiful backhanded pass to Sukhjeet Singh in the 34th minute who was present at the right place to make 1-1.
With that goal, the floodgates opened and Indian skipper Harmanpreet Singh sounded the board twice with two beautiful drag flicks.
Crowd enthralled
Those drag flicks appeared like bolt from the blue and awoke the crowd from a deep slumber.
After Harman’s flicks, it was time for an audacious move from Abhishek who received the ball in the shooting circle, turned and banged the ball in the German net to make it 4-1.
Sukhjeet put on his running shoes in the 48th minute as he singlehandedly raced to the German goal and and produced a slick finish to make it 5-1.
Talking about the display in the third quarter, Indian coach Craig Fulton said,” It was a decent passage of play against a brilliant team. This was the plan all along but we couldn’t do it yesterday.”
Germany scored two more goals via Mazkour and Henrik Mertgens in the final quarter but India had made sure the game was beyond their reach by then.
Dramatic shootout
With both teams winning one game each, a penalty shootout was introduced to decide the series winner.
German goalkeeper Danneberg proved a tough nut for the Indian players to crack as he saved three penalties from Harmanpreet, Abhishek, and Raheel.
Debutant Aditya scored for India and Krishan Bahadur Pathak made two saves but in the end, the German prevailed with a score line of 3-1 to clinch the bilateral series.
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