Darshan Gawkar had performed out the situation in his head, and in coaching, many occasions over.
In Bangalore, the place he was with India’s junior and ‘A’ groups for the nationwide camps, the 21-year-old attacker would run round 40m on the turf whereas balancing the ball on the stick after the every day classes concluded. He’d carry the ball and lob it into the aim, and even attempt a number of physique feints to confuse the goalkeeper.
With this improvisation, Gawkar was taking one of many most interesting arts of contemporary hockey – the 3D abilities – a notch larger.
And final week, in the course of the bronze medal playoff of the Nationwide Video games in Rajkot, all these hours of practising alone led to a second of unimaginable audacity.
Maharashtra and Haryana have been stage at 2-2 after regulation time, forcing the match right into a tie-breaker. After the shootouts acquired underway, Gawkar noticed that the Haryana goalkeeper wasn’t committing himself an excessive amount of ahead. He’d take a few steps and await the attacker, as an alternative of closing him down. This gave him an opportunity to execute the trick he’d practiced quite a bit however by no means utilized in a match.
Darshan Gaonkar of Maharashtra scored in a singular approach throughout penalty-shoot outs in opposition to Haryana within the bronze medal match
Have you ever ever seen this earlier than?@Sanjay_onair@shailesh0601@indianhockey@OnTheSportField@amitesh26
Footage: @ddsportschannel#nationalgames2022 pic.twitter.com/KONKB24foH
— Abhishek Mahajan (@Imabhimahajan) October 11, 2022
“If he can be coming ahead, I’d need to search for whereas working. That might’ve taken my focus off the ball and affected the stability. As a result of he stayed in a single place, I didn’t have to fret about his positioning and will focus on my run,” Gawkar, who performs for BPCL in home hockey, says.
When his flip got here, Gawkar lifted the ball a bit of over knee top proper from the beginning of his run-up and continued to march ahead with out letting it drop. After round 12 lengthy strides – whereas bending ahead and balancing the ball on the stick – he got here inside a few yards of the goalkeeper. Simply then, Gawkar did a physique pretend and pretended that he was turning to the proper to throw the goalkeeper off stability earlier than lobbing it over his helpless opponent.
The ball bounced as soon as earlier than crossing the aim line as Gawkar, who was within the India ‘A’ camp for the Commonwealth Video games however didn’t seem for the choice trials after his sister handed away, unfold his arms large open and launched into an aeroplane celebration.
It was extra lacrosse than hockey.
A easy ‘lacrosse vs hockey’ Google search throws up a bit of greater than 46 million ends in lower than a second. The 2 sports activities, though very totally different, appear comparable. In lacrosse, the gamers swirl the ball within the internet of its stick whereas working not like in hockey, the place a lot of the motion takes place on the bottom.
As an alternative of the online, it was the blade of Gawkar’s stick and for these few seconds when he ran with the ball, the principles blurred.
Hockey went 3D fairly a while in the past. As the nice defending sides began bending decrease and decrease whereas defending – a lot in order that their fingers would get bruised by rubbing in opposition to the floor and the sticks can be kissing the turf to make sure the ball doesn’t go previous – the attackers needed to give you new methods to beat them.
So, they started to carry the ball barely. And to keep away from going straight on the defender, which might make it harmful play and therefore a foul, the gamers began to dribble the ball within the air to vary the route of their run and go across the defender. The artwork of fixing the route of the ball mid-air creates an phantasm of kinds, therefore the title ‘3D’.
SV Sunil. (Categorical FILE)This ability additionally helps gamers to create space for themselves inside a crowded ‘D’.
Former Australia ahead Jamie Dwyer is taken into account among the finest exponents of this. He learnt it by watching former Spain ahead Santi Freixa use it. Among the many present gamers, Argentina’s Agustin Mazzili is rated extremely, and he impressed India’s SV Sunil to be taught and ideal this ability. Sunil, at his peak, was thought-about one of many most interesting 3D dribbles.
Gawkar, who’s the newest from Mumbai-based coach Merzban Patel’s countless manufacturing line, picked up the ability by watching all these gamers. However he wished to provide it his personal spin. “I considered doing one thing totally different. So, I began to run lengthy distances by balancing the ball on the stick and beating the goalkeeper,” he says.
It’s a tactic that’ll be extra deadly in shootouts than within the open play, the place there’s a danger of being stopped for harmful play if the ball goes above the knee top.
And the shootouts, through the years, have been rife with such audacious experiments. In 2019, as an illustration, South Korea’s most skilled participant Lee Nam-yong stepped ahead to take the decisive penalty within the remaining of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in opposition to India.
The 35-year-old started his run from the 23m line and continued to march straight in the direction of Krishan Pathak after getting into the ‘D’, giving an impression he’ll attempt to nutmeg the rookie goalkeeper. However as he reached the penalty spot, Lee casually lifted the ball together with his stick and dinked it over Pathak, straight into the aim.
It was as spectacular as Gawkar’s aim. However it was the Indian’s skill to stability the ball on the stick proper by means of that made it extra audacious.