False alarm, nothing to fear

19/02/2002

Malaysia 2 (S. Kuhan 45th, Maninderjit Singh 67th)
Pakistan 2 (Kashif Jawad 1st, Khalid Saleem 10th)
THERE were anxious moments at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil
last night when Malaysia hosted Pakistan in a friendly match.
First goalkeepr Nasihin Nubli injured his thumb during warm-up and was
seen sitting at the sideline groaning in pain as he squeezed his wrist.
The injured thumb was heavily bandaged.
Then, in the dying minutes of the first half, S. Kuhan received a knock
on his ankle and fell flat on the turf. He took his time to get up and
there was all-round worry that he might have aggravated his old hamstring
tear.
Kuhan limped out but in the second half, made a strong return and even
managed to score a penalty corner goal.
On Nasihin, National Sports Institure Director Dr Ramlan Aziz said: "We
can't do an X-ray tonight because the facilities are not available so we
will do one first thing tomorrow morning.
"But from what I see right now, the injury is not too bad and even if he
did fracture his thumb, he can still play in the World Cup because a
goalkeeper is heavily paded."
Malaysia have had a fair share of injury scares in the run-up to the
World Cup. S. Kuhan tore a hamstring muscle before the Six-Nation and was
benched, then Nor Azlan Bakar pulled a hamstring, Mirnawan Nawawi lost
three teeth when a ball hit him during training, S. Shanker pulled a back
muscle and now the goalkeeper has joined the list.
All the rest have recovered and coach Stephen van Huizen, in charge
because Paul Lissek went home to attend his mother's funeral, is planning
to use Shanker in the friendly against Spain today.
On the match against Pakistan, Malaysia played a lousy first half and in
the first minute itself, the top scorer in the Six-Nation Kashif Jawad
sounded the board after dribbling the entire Malaysian defence.
After that, Malaysia went into a defensive shell and were severely
punished by the speedy Pakistani forwards led by Shahbaz Ahmad, but they
stood their ground - until the 10th minute that is.
A stupid mistake in defence was all Khalid Saleem needed to score
Pakistan's second goal.
The first half was a boring affair after that as the Pakistan players
were contented with the two-goal lead.
But the situation changed in the second half when Malaysia came back
charging and in the 345th minute Kuhan flicked home after three
consecutive penalty corners.
Pakistan tried to increase the lead but Malaysia camped in their
semicircle for the remainder of the match and with three minutes left on
the clock, Maninderjit Singh scored a penalty corner goal to share the
spoils with Pakistan.
To their credit, the Malaysian side did play a good game in the second
half, but the way they played in the first half, they would be punished by
at least five goals if it was the World Cup proper.
But since it was only a friendly, both sides took things easy and
decided to just burn the extra calories picked up during lunch.
Stephen then shed some light on their warm-up opponents: "We picked New
Zealand (2-2) because we will be meeting their neighbours Australia in the
opening match of the World Cup. Both the teams have similar playing
styles.
"Pakistan was selected because they play, more or less, the same style
as India (in the Malaysian group) and Spain because their European style
is similar to Poland's."
There are plans for a match against Germany on Feb 21.
"We are still negotiating with the Germans on the friendly, and our
reason to play them is simple - they are the best in the world right now
and maybe we can pick up a few tricks from them," said Stephen.
jugjet@nstp.com.my
(END)