Press Trust of India
Rajnandgaon (Chattisgarh), Nov 19: Drag-flicker V Raghunath scored two goals to help India settle for a 2-2 draw against World Champions Australia in the first hockey Test of the three-match series, here Thursday.
The series has been organised as a preparation for both the teams ahead of Hero Hockey World League Finals to be played in Raipur, November 27 to December 6.
Raghunath slammed two goals for the hosts in the 28th and 43rd minute, while Australia salvaged the draw riding on an early goal by Dylan Wotherspoon (ninth minute) and a late strike by penalty corner specialist Chris Ciriello (58th minute).
Thursday’s match also marked Chhattisgarh’s first-ever exposure to an international hockey match. The remaining two Tests of the series will be played November 22 and 23 at the recently inaugurated Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel International Hockey Stadium in Raipur, which will host the HWL Final.
World leaders Australia drew first blood through a field goal from Wotherspoon. A faulty back pass from Manpreet Singh was all that Australia needed to score in a match witnessed by 4,000 fans. Tom Craig was quick to pounce on the offer and he brilliantly set up Wotherspoon to score past Indian goalie Harjot Singh, who was preferred over veteran PR Sreejesh.
Stunned by the early goal from the visitors and that too in front of a packed home crowd, India showed more purpose and pressed hard for the equaliser.
Their efforts bore fruit soon when India were awarded a penalty corner and Raghunath made no mistake in slamming the ball to the back of the Australian net with a fierce hit to level the scores.
After the change of ends, the Indians kept up the pressure on the Australian defence, which resulted in another goal from Raghunath, this time he beat the opposition custodian with a deft placement to the left.
India earned five penalty corners in a match where they had more possession than the Australians. The Sardar Singh (push)-Manpreet (trap) and Raghunath (finish) combination worked perfectly but Rupinder Pal Singh wasted two penalty corners in the third quarter of the match.
The second goal rattled Australia but the Kookaburras known for their fighting spirit and came all out attacking in search of the equaliser. They earned a penalty corner after a pacy move down the middle and Ciriello duly converted it to make it 2-2.
“It was an important match, and we were tested on all fronts. The good news is that we have shown composure and we played with the hunger to win. We will go back to reconstruct our strategy for the next match and hopefully we should see the results favouring us,” said India’s chief coach Roelant Oltmans.
