We need to score more goals, says Sardar Singh

Antwerp: India captain Sardar Singh on Tuesday had a word of caution for his teammates on the goal scoring front as he feels that their conversion rate needs to improve in the Hockey World League semi-finals.

Sardar, who mostly plays gamemaker these days, scored an outstanding goal in India 3-0 victory over Poland in a group league match, here today. India lead the Pool A table with maximum six points from two outings, following by World champions Australia and Pakistan, who have three points from the first fixtures and meet tomorrow.

"Poland is the tough team and pack their defence well. It took some effort to get past them," said Sardar, adding that his team has a lot of tough work to do.

"We are improving and we need to do a lot to that. We need to score more and more goals," said the Indian captain, who seemed pleased to have got his name on scorers' sheet.

"It's been a while since I scored a goal and this was a nice conversion," he added. After their narrow 3-2 win over France, India were confronted with an ultra-defensive Poland outing, which also seemed to like the weather conditions.

The Polish players seemed to enjoy the breezy conditions and the Celsius at 16 degrees. These were conditions the Indians had not confronted in recent months. "It was cold indeed," said coach Paul van Ass, quite happy with the way the young players were using the opportunity to play as India have come into this tournament without the pressure of securing qualification for the 2016 Olympics.

Three Olympic spots are on offer in this tournament, but that is not the focus for India who have already secured their passage to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics by virtue of winning the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon.