Hockey update: Rajpal Singh positive for the next month’s Asian Games
The hockey team of India is attempting to move on and forget the loss of the final match at the Common wealth Games in New Delhi where the mighty Australian side got the better of the home team to win the gold medal.
The Indians, however, are now looking forward to the upcoming Asian Games to be held in China from the start of the next month.
Rajpal Singh, who is the captain of the Indian hockey team, while talking to the media on Thursday said that there were a couple of positives from the multi-disciple event that concluded last Thursday, and therefore, the players would like to focus on that as a sweet memory of the competition.
Rajpul, who plays from the forward front line position, became captain of the Indian hockey team after replacing Sandeep Singh shortly prior to the FIH World Cup this season in New Delhi, however unfortunately, couldn’t help his side perform well in the event as India finished at number eight.
Under his captaincy, the Indian side successfully made its way into the semi-final round of the Commonwealth Games after getting the better of Pakistan by 7-4. The team continued its performance against the English side as well in the final four and reached the final on the first occasion in the history of the Common wealth Games. However, the final turned out to be a real disaster as the local side was downed by the red hot Australians at 8-0 to win the gold in New Delhi.
However, in spite of the fact that the final didn’t turn out in India’s favour, the skipper added that he is satisfied with the overall performance of the players throughout the competition.
"We were the only Asian side which put up a good show and advanced into the final. Beyond that, we managed to win the first men's hockey Common wealth Games medal for the country. We want to build on that," Rajpal reflected on Thursday.
He further added, "We are clubbed with Japan and Pakistan. Pakistan has lost heavily to us in recent times and they would be itching to come back at us. We cannot underestimate them. Even Japan will come at us all guns blazing. Every team can spring a surprise and cause an upset. We will plan it match by match and hopefully go all the way.”
When questioned about what actually went wrong in the final hockey match of the Commonwealth Games, the skipper said that they started the match quite well, however after the first fifteen minutes, the Australian side took charge of the match and dominated until the end.
Rajpal however, appreciated his players for not losing hope even when the Australian team was scoring goals one after the other and said that he is quite sure that his guys will produce some good results in the next month’s Asian Games in China.
All the players will take part in a training camp starting from 25th October in New Delhi before travelling all the way to Guangzhou. After winning a silver medal in the Common wealth Games, the team will definitely play confidently in the event where they previously captured a gold medal back in 1998. They couldn’t win a medal at the Asian Games held in Doha back in 2006.
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