Not a perfect way to start a new season but nowhere close to being imperfect either, for India. Great Britain can be dogged, and they showed it on Saturday. But India, reorganised and in testing mode, held their own – even if the Britishers feel more content rallying twice to split points.

It was 1-0 to India and then 2-1 at one stage, before the Britons made it 1-1 and then 2-2. The Indians even had a nervous penalty corner to survive in the dying moments. But the last-minute curse didn’t strike.

Despite three debutants and a fair bit of rejig on the field, India looked pretty organised. And it showed in (a) just one penalty corner conceded and (b) the defence standing tall.

But it didn’t start as planned.

The Ipoh rain arrived, as it does everyday here around 4 pm. But this time it chose to stay on for a bit longer – with thunder and lightning, forcing both teams to cut their pre-match warm-ups in half.

The hour-and-a-half long wet spell pushed the opening day’s schedule by a couple of hours. But with a Sunday to follow, nobody bothered and the stadium started filling up with weekend crowd.

Nervous youngsters

On the pitch were three nervous Indian youngsters, with Sumit looking the most jittery. Gurinder Singh and Manpreet Singh Jr were the other two making their first international appearance. But coach Roelant Oltmans wasn’t expecting magic from the word go.

“You know that if you bring some players for the first time, they will make some mistakes. That is what they have to go through and hopefully they will not do that again. But all these boys can play hockey; there is no doubt about that,” Oltmans said analysing their performance.

Trying something different with Sardar

Sardar Singh didn’t thrust himself much beyond the halfway line. Oltmans played him as a withdrawn midfielder, and it worked nicely.

Probably, to be around youngsters, Surender Kumar, Gurinder and Harmanpreet, Sardar was asked by Oltmans to not hover around the opposition’s 25-yard line. And it showed in the play of youngsters, who found assistance from the former captain whenever he was on the field.

“He can play very well upfront as well,” Oltmans said. “But Sardar, the position where he is playing, I have mentioned many times before that he is great value for the team. That is what he showed again today.”

Bobby Crutchley, the Great Britain chief coach, agreed with Oltmans.

“He has got so much control when he plays back there. It’s difficult to press him because he controls the game, and I think he did that really well today,” Crutchley said.

Defence in place

To pick a brick from India’s defensive wall, Surender Kumar stood out with his sense of positioning and anticipation. He looked well-oiled and continues to gain confidence from his stints in the Champions Trophy and Rio Olympics last year.

Harmanpreet, too, exhibited calmness required from a defender. He made his international debut at this tournament last year, and is cementing his place in the Indian line-up.

“If I look overall, I can live with the result. Furthermore, we defended fairly well in the whole match,” Oltmans said.

Need to create more chances

If India conceded just one penalty corner, they also created only one for themselves, which is why Oltmans sounded a little put-off by the number of meaningful forays made by the forwards.

Though Akashdeep Singh kept his Hockey India League goal-scoring form going and Mandeep Singh’s opportunism earned him another goal, India didn’t make as many circle penetrations they would have liked. In the frontline, they even put Affan Yousuf as centre forward, but it was all part of the testing done by Oltmans.

“I was not very happy with the number of goal-scoring opportunities we created in the game,” Oltmans said after the match. “I am not someone who is fairly quickly satisfied, so I can’t say that I am satisfied, but as I said, I can live with it.”