Jalandhar, Nov 1 India’s chief coach Craig Fulton on Sunday said losing in-form striker Abhishek to an ankle injury just before the match was a big setback but praised the side for its consistency in registering its fourth consecutive win at the Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament here.
Skipper Harmanpreet Singh slammed a hat-trick as five-time champions and Asian Games gold medallist India defeated Asiad silver-medal winners Malaysia 4-2 in their fourth round-robin match.
“It’s not easy when you lose Abhishek in the warm-up. He didn’t play the whole game, so we played with 15 men. Just an ankle injury. Just unfortunate.
“We created four golden chances in the first half. (Scoreline) should have been better. Yeah, that’s it. You have to take the chances. Some days it works really well, some days it doesn’t. And today was difficult. I’m okay. I’m happy,” Fulton said after the match.
“It’s not easy to lose a striker. You play with four and then your midfield changes. And then, unfortunately, we got a yellow card and that brought them back into the game.”
Asked about the seriousness of Abhishek’s injury, Fulton said: “Not sure. We’ll have to wait and see. So that changed a lot of things. I don’t know. We’ll have to check with the physio. We’ll wait and see tomorrow.”
Fulton was happy with the momentum the team had build during the course of the tournament.
“I’d love to say we could win these games 7-0. It doesn’t work like that. But I think we’re playing well. We could be a little bit sharper and take a few more chances in the first half and make the gap a bit bigger.
“Consistency does matter a lot. Yeah, and the momentum is good and we’re playing well. We’ll keep rotating the squad,” he said.
(PTI News)
