Pakistan forward admits hosts were unstoppable in their World Cup opener yesterday
Pakistan forward admits hosts were unstoppable in their World Cup opener yesterdayPakistan's star forward Rehan Butt was the first to admit that the Indians played an unbelievable brand of hockey to beat them 4-1 in their World Cup opener at the Dhyan Chand Stadium last night.
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"India played wonderful hockey. They were good in all departments of the game today, while we made too many mistakes. Hopefully, we can learn from these errors and not repeat them in our future matches here," Butt said immediately after goals from Shivendra Singh, Sandeep Singh (two) and Prabhjot Singh saw the hosts prevail 4-1 in the Pool B encounter.
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India coach Jose Brasa however refused to read too much into the victory. "It's a good win but we must now keep our feet on the ground. We have to concentrate on the other matches in our group (against Australia, Spain and England) if we have to reach the semi-finals," he said at the post-match press conference.
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The Spaniard however was happy with the way his boys handled the emotional rush that could so easily have overwhelmed them given the packed house and a traditional rival as an opponent. "It's good to see that our players were very calm and not emotional. We were clever in the mid-field and controlled the game well. I'm very happy with this performance," he added.
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On preferring to start the game with goalkeeper PR Sreejesh instead of the experienced Adrian D'Souza, Brasa said: "We have two good goalkeepers and so the idea is to rotate the 'keepers well. Adrian will be back for the game against Australia."
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Pakistan coach Shahid Ali Khan was at a loss for words to explain the defeat. "Our performance was rather disappointing today. We committed too many mistakes in the first half," he said even as he preferred to look at the tournament ahead optimistically.
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"This is not the last match of the tournament. We can surely make a come back. But yes, we would have liked to beat India and start off our World Cup campaign on a winning note," he said
