‘Pakistan, a nice challenge’: Indian hockey coach Craig Fulton

India’s players celebrate a goal against Singapore in Hangzhou on Tuesday. Pic/PTI

There's something about India versus Pakistan hockey at multi-discipline events like the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. That's the reason despite the Indian shooting contingent consistently bagging medals galore on a daily basis, there is still anticipation among hockey aficionados ahead of Saturday's league encounter between the arch-rivals here. This, despite there being a visible gulf between the two teams in the recent past - India are World No. 3 while Pakistan are a lowly 15th.

India in good form

So far, India have hammered Uzbekistan and Singapore by identical 16-0 scorelines before beating reigning champs Japan 4-2. Pakistan, meanwhile, romped to a 11-0 win over Singapore before beating Bangladesh 5-2 and thumping Uzbekistan 18-2.

Craig Fulton

The last time the two hockey rivals met was at the Asian Champions Trophy in Chennai last month, where India emerged 4-0 victors.

India chief coach Craig Fulton however, knows he can never take the skillful neighbours lightly. "We are in a rebuilding phase and we have a nice challenge against Pakistan. However, we are in a tournament and not in a series against Pakistan, so we're up for a bigger goal. This match is one step in the seven games [five league matches, semi-final and final] we want to do well in," Fulton said after India's win over Japan on Thursday night.

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Japan strike twice

India cruised to a 4-0 lead against the Japanese before four minutes of lost possession saw them concede twice (56th and 60th minute) in the end. Fulton wasn't impressed with what he saw. "We did well in the first three quarters. I thought we had good control in the game, we had a few good chances which we didn't finish and that's fine, but then in the last five minutes, they had nothing to lose so they pushed and we tried to play a little bit of the same game. We don't need to score three more goals when we are 4-0 up with five minutes to go. So that's something we need to address," he added.