CWG Recap: Australia and India’s lead in Men’s Hockey semi-final
12th October 2010 was another stunning and exciting day at the Commonwealth games where England was defeated by the host team, India on penalty strokes. India made its mark by winning this match and setting up the Gold medal match against Australia,
the world champions. It was one of the best ever played match at Commonwealth hockey tournament, as India returned surprisingly from a 3-1 deficit to get extra time and penalty strokes. This match will go down in history as one of the most exciting and unpredictable
one ever played.
Both teams made two successful stroke conversions and after that Glenn Kirkham showed up for England. Indian goalkeeper Bharat Kumar Chetri very sensibly got the direction correctly and prevented Kirkham from scoring a goal for England. The remaining strokes
were successful for both the teams, and thus India secured position in the final match against Australia. The joy and excitement of Indian nation could be analyzed from the roar of huge crowd of almost 20,000 spectators in the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium.
Earlier on the same day, the Australian Men’s Hockey team saw off their rivals, New Zealand to secure their position in Thursday’s Gold medal match. The Kookaburras are the world’s favourites for winning the gold medal and hoping to come up with great enthusiasm
in the final. At the same time, Indians are also full of confidence and spirit and hoping not to disappoint their home crowd by settling for a silver medal.
In semi-final 1 which was between Australia and New Zealand, the former took a longer time to score as compare to the previous games. It was due to some awesome goalkeeping from New Zealander Kyle Pontifex. But Australian Simon Orchard and Glenn Turner scored
goals in 25th and 28th minutes respectively and then before half time, their compatriot Jason Wilson also added his name to the score sheet of Australia for 3-0 lead. In the start of second half, Des Abbott did net in the 43rd
minute. But New Zealand didn’t lose confidence at all and fought back to reduce the deficit to two in Australia's favour. These two goals were scored by Blair Hilton and captain Phil Burrows. But the Australians responded by Turner and Orchard completing a
6-2 win and securing a berth in final match on Thursday. New Zealand will now contest for the bronze medal.
India won a place in the Gold Medal match on Thursday by defeating England in penalty strokes in Tuesday’s semi-final 2 of the tournament. In the first half, India took a 1-0 lead when Saravanjit Singh tapped in a penalty corner but then the match was turned
when Ashley Jackson made two stunning goals on each side of half time to raise the score to 1-3. Jackson made a fruitless effort against the cross bars which would have in fact killed the contest. But the extremely passionate and enthusiastic home fans of
Indian team inspired them and India responded with field goals from Sardar Singh and Vikram Pillay to tie the scores to 3-3 at the end of normal time. Neither of the two was able to score a golden goal in two periods of extra time, and the result was then
to be decided by penalty strokes. After two successful conversions from both side, Indian goalkeeper Bharat Kumar successfully prevented Kirkham from converting a penalty stroke into a score. Remaining stokes were successful for both sides, thus India won
the challenge.
Tuesday’s opening match, the classification game for deciding men’s ninth and tenth position was played between Scotland and Trinidad and Tobago. At 7-0, Scotland secured ninth position ahead of Trinidad and Tobago. In the classification game for fifth and
sixth place, South Africa got the fifth position and Pakistan ended in securing sixth place in the competition.
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