Hockey: India comes from behind to beat England, advances to semifinals

There were sound moves, good defensive work and a glut of goals as India, coming back from a deficit, quelled England 4-3 in style to top Pool A in men’s hockey of the XXI Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast hockey centre here on Wednesday evening.

The intentions of the side was quite clear — to avoid Australia in the semifinals, a path which was cleared on Tuesday. But then, the going was not on expected lines as England seemed to have the same ideas.

Fuelled by the desire to get to what it had set out for, England after a barren first quarter took the lead through David Condon who was bang on target after getting into the Indian scoring circle.

India took a long time to find its rhythm and the turnaround came in the third quarter as skipper Manpreet Singh got the equaliser after being put on play by a combined effort from Gurjant Singh and Mandeep Singh.

Rupinder Pal Singh, the drag flicker, got one right almost eighteen minutes later to put India into the lead for the first time. But its joy was shortlived as Liam Ansell pierced one past the Indian custodian, off a penalty corner.

England went ahead, four minutes later, this time through Sam Ward but there was more to come. India staged its second comeback through Varun Kumar and then a minute later Mandeep was right on target to ensure a memorable win.