India keen to seal World Cup spot at Asia Cup, says Fulton

The Asia Cup, while being important as a qualifying event for the World Cup, is also crucial for teams to prepare their programmes for the next 18 months and India coach Craig Fulton admits that winning here would ease a lot of pressure on the side.

“Of course, if we qualify from here, we already have a year’s programme set. Otherwise, it will be some time probably in March (the qualifiers), which really complicates a very busy schedule with the Pro League and the Hockey India League. That’s something we want to avoid at all costs from our side,” Fulton said here on the eve of the tournament.

Fulton added that the lessons from the Pro League were worked on with focus on both scoring and defending. “We had a lot of meetings and put a lot of emphasis on tactics, putting the ball more in the opposition circle and getting more scoring chances, which will make us more effective on the scoreboard. You always need to have a level of defence to ensure the team plays a certain way because if we score but also concede we don’t always win games, a problem we had in the Pro League,” he said.

Captain Harmanpreet Singh agreed, saying the results in the Pro League were not as expected but the matches helped a lot. “The most important thing is to be alert in the two-three minutes after scoring a goal because that is the time when there is a danger of conceding a goal or rushing too much. We also need to be alert at the start of the 3rd and 4th quarters – lessons we learnt from the Pro League,” he explained.