Hockey World Cup | It is always important to keep opponents in puzzle while taking PCs, reveals VR Raghunath

With India directly making it to the quarter-finals of the ongoing Hockey World Cup after getting the better of Canada in their last pool game, the team is now pumped up to do well in the knock-out stage. The penalty corner conversion has always been an important factor in close games for Indian and they would expect their drag-flickers to execute those perfectly in the upcoming matches of the tournament.

“Penalty corners will be a crucial aspect in the knock out stage as both the teams’ defence will be very compact and will not have open shots to take and free goals to score. Conversion rate was good in the last game against Canada and I feel that for the quarters, we need to create more penalty corners. I think we have to make at least five PCs from which we can convert 1 or 2 into goals,” Raghunath told SportsCafe.

The Indian team management, with Harendra Singh at the helm and Australian drag-flick specialist Chris Ciriello as the other man in the coaching team, has tried to do some variations on a few occasions while trying to convert the penalty corners. The experiment worked really well in the favour of the hosts when local lad Rohidas drilled the ball past Canada goalie Antoni Kindler in the 51st minute of the game. He didn’t go for the conventional drag-flick rather pushed the ball first into the striking circle and nailed the goal at a lower height to the right of the custodian. 

“We have both direct and indirect converting strategy and it is up to the coach to use what is the best possible way of converting a PC. It is always important to keep the opponent in a confusing mode or in a puzzle so that they will not know what is the variation we are using in the match. It is a good idea to show people that we have so many options and we can use according to match situations,” explained the acclaimed drag-flicker. 

Making his debut way back in 2005, Raghunath has played with most of the senior members in the current team including skipper Manpreet Singh. He has also seen many of the youngsters in the Hockey India League games where he led the Uttar Pradesh Wizards. He underlined the fact that the senior players should raise their level of hockey in the knockout games so that the young ones can follow them.

“Senior most players should raise their game to the highest level so that other junior players can work hard to push them to their maximum best. It is very important for 7-8 or 10 players to play high-level hockey so that others in the team can go on to support and follow them.”

Raghunath, who played the exhibition game between Dilip Tirkey XI and Dhanraj Pillay XI at the World Cup venue a couple of months back, also opined that this is a great opportunity for the Indian team to get the best result as they are playing at home and the vociferous crowd at Kalinga Stadium are always behind the hosts. 

“At present, they are playing quality hockey which made India the pool toppers and we qualified for the quarters directly. I think the next stage of the tournament will be a completely different ball game. We should take every match as the last match as there is no second chance after this. Quarterfinals will be more aggressive and attacking and whatever you do you have to do in the 60 minutes. It will be exciting watch the quarters,” the 30-year-old defender from Karnataka concluded.