Ipoh (Malaysia): The 4-2 win over world champions Australia in the Azlan Shah Cup here was India's new chief coach Paul van Ass' first big win since taking over the charge a month back and he said Saturday's result showed the world that the Sardar Singh-led side "can play hockey".

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Van Ass was in no mood to get overboard with this win but said what he liked about his wards performance today was their fighting spirit.

"Let's not make big analysis out of this win. The energy was good and I liked that. We can play hockey we showed that," the Dutchman told PTI when asked whether he consider this win as his best result with the team.

"Yeah, of course at last it was a complete performance.

We had a win against the No.1 side in the world which is always nice. So, it is a big compliment for the boys. They fought from first minute till the 60th minute. I liked it, I liked the intensity," a visibly relieved Van Ass said after snapping defending champion Australia's winning run in the tournament.

Today we just played a good game. We controlled the game well, we scored goals what more can you want."

Young striker Nikkin Thimmaiah scored a hat-trick as India produced a spirited performance, their best in the tournament, to stun Australia and secure their place in tomorrow's third-fourth place play-off match.

India scored a goal each in all the four quarters through V R Raghunath (1st minute), Nikkin (23rd, 32nd, 60th), while Australia's goals came from the sticks of Daniel Beale (14th) and Matt Gohdes (53rd).

By virtue of this win, India, who were already out of the title race coming into today's match, finished their league engagements with seven points from five games and will now face Korea in the third-fourth place classification match.

"I still do think the first two matches we played really well. The only poor game was against Malaysia, especially the first two quarters. There we lost it," Van Ass said, analysing India's performance so far in this tournament.

"I think we should have got more points from our first two matches." 


Of late, India came up with some impressive results against Australia. The Sardar Singh-led side posted a historic 3-1 Test series win over the Kookaburras at their own backyard before losing 1-2 in a keenly-contested bronze medal play-off match in the FIH Champions Trophy in December last year.

"I do believe that the way India play doesn't suit Australia very much," the coach said talking about India-Australia clashes.

Praising India's man of the moment Nikkin, Van Ass, "He (Nikkin) was very good today. He was effective. He not only scored goals, what I liked about him is that he worked hard and got rewarded by good chances," Van Ass said.

Van Ass said third-fourth place game will test the energy level of his players.

"We have a big game tomorrow. It's very important because I will have to see what is left in the players in terms of energy after today's game. But I hope they boys will be able to handle to tough games in a row. That will be an interesting information which will come out of this tournament," he said.

Australia coach Graham Reid praised India for their superb performance and said the defeat was a good wake up call for his side ahead of tomorrow's final against Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand.

"India started very well. They kept the pressure on us throughout the match," he said.

"We didn't hold the ball much. We were guilty of losing the possession overtime the ball was with us. We played little better in the second half."