I wish India regain lost glory: Ballal

Sydney: The Sydney 2000 hockey event will be a very open tournament where at least five teams - Holland, Spain, Pakistan, Australia and India - in contention for gold.

Fortunately for India this time the matches are spaced with rest day. India's greatest test will be when they walk out to play their first match against Argentina.

The first match since 1988 has been a nemesis with India having lost their opening encounters. Unfortunately, India will begin their campaign against Argentine to whom they lost in the first match at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

According to former Indian goal-keeper Ashish Ballal, the Indian players have to be focused and not to worry about the past records. "India will have to concentrate on beating their opponents. They have to be cautious against Argentina's penalty corner conversions. The Indian defence should avoid giving penalty corners to Argentina," Ballal told Thatcricket in an informal chat.

"Dhanraj Pillay, Mukesh Kumar and Baljit Singh Dhillon should combine well to beat the opposition defence at regular intervals. It would also be nice to see Lazarus Barla team up with Dileep Tirkey in the deep defence," Ballal said.

"In the second match against Australia, India have to mark Jay Stacy and Stephen Davis. We should pounce on the counter attacks and slow down the pace of the game," he explained while discussing the possible strategies the India could adopt.

"In the third match against Korea, India should play attacking hockey. I am sure that India can easily beat the Korea, provided our left half Ramandeep Singh and left defender Tirkey check the Korean attack from the right side."

Against Spain, who have improved leaps and bounds in the last decade, the Indians should be cautious, Ballal felt. The Spaniards have learnt the European style of power (hit and run) play as well as the Asian dribbling skills.

India should try not to give too many penalty corners to the Spaniards and adopt a man to man marking in defence. India should also keep ball possession and rely on counter attacks.

The last match against Poland would be an easy affair and by then Indian would have known their fortunes regarding the qualification for the semi-finals. And to reach the last four stage, the Indians will have to win a minimum of two matches at least.

"We should try and focus on one match at a time and not think of the end result. Having gone almost a month ahead, the Indian players would be well acclimatised with the Australian conditions. That should keep them in good stead," Ballal added.

"Unfortunately, the Indians could not get any practice match against other national teams. All their practice matches were against local clubs. I only hope, the boys (some of them are new to the situation) would come up trumps and bring back India's hockey glory."

India's matches: September 17: Argentina, September 19: Australia, September 21: Korea, September 23: Spain and September 26: Poland.