By Anand Philar

Eleventh World Cup - Monchengladbach, Germany (September 6-17, 2006)

While the game of musical chairs continued with Vasudevan Baskaran back as coach, India hoped to make up for the disastrous 2002 campaign in Malaysia. However, as if on cue, the preparations went haywire as penalty corner specialist Sandeep Singh dropped out a couple of days before the team’s departure to Germany following a freak gunshot wound.

“The incident totally upset our plans and also the balance of the team,” recalled Baskaran, who was then given a young replacement in V.R. Raghunath. The Bangalorean drag-flicker was pulled out of the Indian side participating in the South Asian Games in Sri Lanka and was rushed to Germany.

Nevertheless, the projections of a finish in the 5-8 bracket were justified, considering the pool that India were in and also the talent within.

India nearly pulled off a miraculous draw with Germany in their opening fixture. The teams were tied 2-2 with a minute left on the clock, but Germany struck through Christopher Zeller seconds before close for a 3-2 decision.

A 2-3 loss to England in the next match effectively shut the door on India who then struggled to a 1-1 draw with the highly defensive South Africa before going down 1-2 to South Korea who struck twice in the last eight minutes, followed by a 1-6 thrashing against the Netherlands for whom drag-flick specialist Taeke Taekema converted four of the 10 penalty corners.

Having to play for 9-12 positions, India crashed to a 2-3 defeat to Argentina and then scrambled to a 1-0 win against South Africa in the 11-12 position playoff match.

“The loss to Germany broke our spine and it was downhill from there on. Had we drawn with Germany, it would have been a huge morale booster for us. We were down to 10 men against Germany when Kanwalpreet Singh was sent off with a yellow card. Yet, we fought hard but conceded the match-winner with about 45 seconds left. That was the turning point,” recalled team member Viren Rasquihna.

The other teams that hit the headlines included eventual champions Germany who played out a pre-determined goalless draw with South Korea to eject the Netherlands out of a semi-final spot.

The draw left a lot of red faces in the International Hockey Federation, including then president Els van Breda Vriesman. However, both the culprit teams escaped even a censure, but the Dutch were far from amused.

But the Koreans themselves were done in by poor umpiring in the semi-finals against Australia whose two penalty corner conversions were illegal as the ball was stopped inside the circle before the first attempt. Korea’s protest was not accepted as the team management had already signed the score-sheet that reflected a 4-2 win for Australia.

Indian team:

Goalkeepers: Adrian D’Souza, Bharat Chetri. Devenders: Dilip Tirkey (captain), Kanwalpreet Singh, V.R. Raghunath. Midfielders: Prabodh Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey, Viren Rasquinha, Vikram Pillay, Arjun Halappa, V.S. Vinaya, Nithin Kumar. Forwards: Gagan Ajit Singh, Shivendra Singh, Hari Prasad, Tushar Khandkar, Rajpal Singh and Tejbir Singh. Coach: Vasudevan Baskaran.

How they finished:

1. Germany; 2. Australia; 3. Spain; 4. Korea; 5. England; 6. Pakistan; 7. The Netherlands; 8. New Zealand; 9. Japan; 10. Argentina; 11. India; 12. South Africa.