Sultan Azlan Shah hockey: Argentina beat India 3-2

Argentina's Gonzalo Peillat in action v India in the Sultan Azlan Shah hockey tournament on Saturday

Simply put, the difference was Gonzalo Peillat's hat-trick as Olympic champions Argentina got past a slow start in the first quarter and a late surge by India to clinch three points after a 3-2 win over an Indian side that must have fancied their chances against the South Americans here in the Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament.

A typical Ipoh downpour stopped play for almost 45 minutes in the 4th quarter but after resumption Argentina held the play not giving much away to clinch the match and those important three points so important to build momentum in the tournament.

It pours again
In their last match against India in the Hockey World League Finals, Argentina had beaten India 1-0 again on a day when a downpour had rendered the pitch almost unplayable.

India would rue the missed chances in the first ten minutes when Nilam Xess and Sumit Kumar missed one-to-one situations with the Argentine goalkeeper Juan Vivaldi.

Argentina slowly came into the match and off counters scored twice through Peillat's penalty corners. India came back strongly with goals from Amit Rohidas and at one stage in the 31st minute were going strong having equalised at 2-2.

Sjoerd Marijne

But two minutes later, after a defensive mix up, India gave Argentina's it's 6th penalty corner and Peillat fired in the hat-trick giving the South Americans a 3-2 lead. India played well in patches, but the momentum so required never got going. Argentina cut off play in the midfield and used short passes. The rains came in the 4th quarter with eleven minutes left and a 45 minute hold-up which one hoped would help India never materialised. Argentina even had a 7th penalty corner, which they couldn't stop cleanly and in the end Talwinder Singh blew a shot and a chance of taking home a point.

Corners cause trouble
Sjoerd Marijne said he was proud of the team and hoped that fans would understand that India was playing with a young team and that in the end the opposition was the Olympic champion.

"Yes, there were moments when we were technically deficient and couldn't trap well but I am happy with the performance," said the Dutchman. "We had a chance of playing a close game."

On the penalty corners, he wasn't surprised that Argentina scored three. "When you give a team seven PC's, especially a team as strong as Argentina, they would score 2-3 and today they were successful in finding the corners," said Marijne. The coach was, however, confident that India would look at the errors and come strong in the next match on Sunday against last year's champions England.

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