Melbourne: Nothing seems to be going right for Indian hockey at the moment. Even winning against the relatively weaker teams is proving to be difficult as they began their quest for a maiden medal in the Commonwealth Games men's hockey by drawing 1-1 with Malaysia in the preliminary league Group B opening match on Friday.
The draw means that India will have to win its next three matches convincingly to make it to the semis as the number one team in the group. That is because Australia are expected to top group one and meeting them in the semis is not exactly a healthy proposition.
India's other opponents in the group are Trinidad & Tobago and South Africa.
Malaysia went into the lead in the 21st minute with the efforts of Rahim Muhammad Amin but Sandeep Singh equalised in the 43rd minute with a superb penalty corner conversion at the State Netball Hockey Centre.
India dished out a mixture of European and Indian styles of play and concentrated more on long passes.
They looked to enter the circle but this did not work out against the Malaysian defenders who showed they were up to the task.
In fact, the Malaysians became defensive during the second half.
Besides, Indian forward Deepak Thakur, though did not find his usual exuberant form, was totally manned and rarely got out of the shackles and the forward line's movement was also restricted.
India put up a decent performance and even reached near victory at a point when Bharat Chettri showed his impatience to wield the stick after the ball passed him from a rival attacker, which warranted umpire Simon Taylor of New Zealand to show the dreaded spot.
Amin beat Chettri for the vital lead.
Chettri showed resilience coming up with couple of saves but paid the penalty for his technical ignorance in wielding the stick at the zero angle when Tengu Ahmad was trying to retrieve the ball.
This culminated into a 'stroke' and Rahim scooped in.
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India earned its first penalty corner in the 31st minute and Sandeep Singh's drag flick was well saved by Ibrahim Mohammad Nasihin.
In the first 25 minutes of second half, Indian dominance put Malaysia under pressure.
A minute after Prabodh Tirkey put Tejbir Singh on the left and the latter's try was saved, Rajpal's superb effort from about 20 yards on the right hit the cross piece and it developed into a penalty corner for India, their second of the match.
Sandeep Singh sounded the board.
From then on, the Malaysians adopted defensive methods while India suffered as several umpiring decisions went against them.
Sandeep Singh received a yellow card and a five minutes suspension by Simon Taylor for a tackle and Prabodh, a green card.
Indian defense and midfielders showed greater cohesion, though they indulged in miss or wrong passes but the Malaysians are to be credited for their total hockey.
Their centre forward Tengu Ahmad was especially very agile and appeared dangerous whenever he ventured into the 25 yard line.
The Malaysians were most often able to unsettle their Indian rivals with their perfect interceptions and were also able to threat frequently for a goal.
India plays Pakistan on Saturday.
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