England score last minute equaliser to level score with Pakistan at 2-2 at Four-Nation tournament
The opening match of the Four-Nation tournament, being played at Wagner Stadium, Amsterdam, in Netherlands, between Pakistan and England ended in a draw at 2-2, on June 29.
Overall it was a pretty tight game except the last ten minutes which showed a bit of entertainment to the spectators.
The match started with a reasonable dominance of the Greenshirts, who opened their account in the starting moments of the first half, when Sohail Abbas, the world record holder of the most number of goals, scored his 328th international goal with
a beautiful drag flick in the 8th minute of the first half. The first half ended at 1-0 to Pakistan.
Khawaja Junaid, the manager of the Greenshirts seemed very exciting over the fitness of Sohail Abbas, world’s best drag flick player, with conversion rate of 65 percent.
“His fitness is much better than at the World Cup last December and we are focusing on getting him into perfect condition for the London Olympics,” Khawaja Junaid, the Pakistan team manager stated about the form and the fitness of the veteran penalty corner
specialist, Sohail Abbas.
In the second half, the English side played beautifully by putting immense pressure on Pakistan's defence-line that defended their goal-post well, but only till the 64th minute, when Richard Smith scored the equaliser after Sohail Abbas had been
sent off the field showing a yellow card. However there was a wonderful drama in last two minutes of the match, when Pakistan once again took lead two minutes before the end of the play, thanks to Shakeel Abbasi, but it lasted only for seconds, when Barry
Middleton equalised in the dying moments of the match.
"I think playing in Germany for the two months I've become a typical German and played deeper. I felt there was a bit of a mistake by me before their goal so I had to make amends for the second goal they scored too," Barry Middleton, the English skipper
told.
The English coach was not much satisfied with the performance of his players.
"We had enough action down there end to have more corners and to score more goals. We are here to win this tournament," Jason Lee, the English coach stated after the match.
Meanwhile, the first two matches of the tournament, Pakistan versus Netherlands and Germany versus England, have been postponed due to the thunderstorms.
Initially the matches were scheduled to be conducted on the opening day of the event, on Tuesday, June 28, but now these matches will be played on Thursday, June 30, while the format of the tournament has also been changed to round-robin and the winner will
be decided on basis of the points in group matches. No final will be played separately.
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