Great Britain off to flier as Pakistan wilt in opener: Olympic hockey
Britain produced their best under English-like murky and cool conditions after heavy rains, which started on Sunday morning, lashed the city.
Pakistan had defeated Britain with heavy margins in their previous two Olympic encounters — 8-1 at Sydney in 2000 and 8-2 at Athens in 2004.
The Green-shirts produced sterling performance in the second half, but missed chances denied them an opportunity to stage a comeback after conceding 0-3 lead in the first half.
Britain got off to a confident start when James Tindall put them in front in the second minute of the match.
Pakistan’s first penalty-corner in the ninth minute by Imran Warsi went stray.
Great Britain forced their first penalty-corner on a counter attack in the next minute but thwarted by Salman Akbar.
Four minute later, Rob Moore doubled his team’s lead when he scored a brilliant field goal with a powerful reverse-sweep which landed in the left corner of the goal.
The Britons kept Pakistan’s defence at bay with a series of attacks.
Seven minutes from the interval, Ashley Jackson found the net with a powerful drag-flick which gave Salman Akbar no chance.
Pakistan gathered all their energies and applied pressure before end of the first session but despite earning three back-to-back penalty-corners all their efforts proved futile.
Zeeshan Ashraf’s side started with a new vigour in the second session as the forward line comprising experienced Rehan Butt, Shakeel Abbas, and young Waqas Akbar, Abbas Haider carried out a number of attacks into Britain’s defence.
Their hard work was finally rewarded when Shakeel Abbasi reduced the margin after nicely connecting an angular cross from the top of the left side of the circle.
Soon afterwards, Pakistan came close to make it 2-3 but Rehan’s try just went wide of the left side of the goalpost.
With Great Britain looking under pressure, a lovely combined move from the 25-yard line resulted in giving Pakistan their second goal after Waqas Sharif smartly deflected reverse-sweep from Abbas Haider to make it 2-3 in the 59th minute.
At that stage, Pakistan looked battling to level the score but their hopes went in vain when Matt Daly scored Britons’ fourth goal off a rebound from Salman Akbar, following a penalty-corner strike from Richard Mantell.
Apart from brilliant work by Great Britain custodian Alistair McGregor, Pakistan’s penalty-corner strikers were disappointing as they failed to convert any of the six penalty-corners.
Vice-captain Mohammad Imran missed chances on three penalty-corners while Imran Warsi on two.
Pakistan came back from 0-4 down to hold Britain 4-4 in Dublin but they could not repeat their magic here.
After Tuesday’s rest day, Pakistan will take on Canada on Wednesday.
In other pool ‘B’ matches of the day, Australia kicked off their title defence in style by thrashing Canada 6-1 with Des Abbott knocking in three goals.
Fergus Kavanagh, Eddie Ockenden and Grant Schubert also slotted home.
Canada, who qualified after eight years, pulled one back through an opportunistic goal by Peter Short.
The Netherlands outclassed South Africa 5-0. Taeke Taekema scored two goals for the winners.
In the pool ‘A’ matches, New Zealand beat higher ranked South Korea 3-1 after strong Germany brushed aside China 4-1.
Spain beat Belgium 4-2.
Results:
Pool ‘A’:
Germany 4 (Christopher Zeller 21, Florian Keller 43, 54, Carlos Nevado 68) China 1 (Na Yubo 7).
New Zealand 3 (Hayden Shaw 43, 57, 64) South Korea 1 (Lee Nam-Yong 12).
Spain 4 (Pol Amat 8, Santi Freixa 20, Xavier Ribas 41, Victor Sojo 49) Belgium 2 (Jerome Truyens 26, Jerome Dekeyser 63).
Pool ‘B’:
Britain 4 (James Tindall 2, Rob Moore 14, Ashley Jackson 28, Matt Daly 63) Pakistan 2 (Shakeel Abbasi 47, Mohammad Waqas 60).
Australia 6 (Des Abbott 15, 16, 54, Fergus Kavanagh 22, Eddie Ockenden 48, Grant Schubert 57) Canada 1 (Peter Short 38).
The Netherlands 5 (Taeke Taekema 4, 35, Laurence Docherty 44, Jeroen Hertzberger 47, Matthijs Brouwer 66) South Africa 0.—Agencies