The Indian men’s hockey team will look to break their losing streak in the European leg of FIH Pro League when they take on Australia at Antwerp on Saturday.
Harmanpreet Singh and co. have lost four consecutive matches against the likes of the Netherlands and Argentina over the last one week which severely impacted their chances of winning the title. Meanwhile, for Australia, this will be their first match in their European leg.
India sit fifth in the table with 15 points from 12 matches while Australia are eighth with 12 points. India are likely to fall further as other teams have played less number of matches.
India head coach Craig Fulton will want to make big improvements in the remaining four matches, especially in defence. So far, India have conceded 11 goals while scoring seven. Considering Fulton’s emphasis on having a robust defence, he will not be happy with what he saw. Silly mistakes leading to conceding late goals and also giving away goals from set-pieces are some of the major concerns of the team.
Fulton will also want more from his forwards as the likes of Mandeep Singh, Sukhjeet Singh and Dilpreet Singh didn’t have the desired impact. Only Abhishek was among the goals in the four matches while Shilanand Lakra also impressed.
Another talking point is the availability of their captain Harmanpreet. He missed the previous game because of a hand injury so it’s a question mark whether he will make it for Saturday’s game.
India vs Australia will start at 2 PM IST on Saturday. The match will be shown on Star Sports and Hotstar.
You can follow the play-by-play action from the match on our blog, below:
