Abhishek Still a Doubt as India Face Korea Tonight, and Fulton Won’t Rush Him
India go into tonight‘s semifinal as overwhelming favourites, and still with one nagging question. Will Abhishek play?
The forward picked up an ankle injury around the Malaysia game at the weekend, sat out Monday’s 8-0 win over Korea, and has been touch and go ever since. Head coach Craig Fulton has not dressed it up. “We’re not sure yet. We’re waiting to find out. He’s injured, so we’re seeing if he can make it back. We’ll have to wait. The timeline is very short,” Fulton said. He added that the team would not risk an athlete’s injury, which tells you where the line is: if Abhishek is not right, he does not play, final or no final.
Captain Harmanpreet Singh is more optimistic. “He is doing fine, we have rested him for two matches but I hope he will be fine to play in semifinal,” Harmanpreet said. That is the hope inside the camp. It is not a clearance, and the two quotes together are the honest picture: the captain wants him, the coach will not gamble on him.
It matters because Abhishek is not just a finisher. He has three goals in this tournament, and just as important, he creates chances for others. India have coped without him, and that is the point Fulton keeps making about depth. Mandeep Singh started the tournament with a hat-trick against Bangladesh, Sukhjeet Singh and Dilpreet Singh, who has four goals, carry real threat, and Shilanand Lakra has stepped up too. The younger forwards, Aditya Lalage and Angad Bir Singh, have also had their moments. India are not a one-man attack.
Still, you would rather have him. Korea lost 8-0 on Monday, but a semifinal is a different animal, and Korea finished fourth with six points for a reason. They have Son Da-in and Park Geun-woo in their ranks, and they will be desperate to show Monday was a bad day, not their level. If Abhishek is fit, India’s forward line looks complete again. If he is not, the rest of the attack has to do what it did on Monday: share the goals around and let Harmanpreet, the tournament’s top scorer on nine, do his work from penalty corners.
The call will come close to pushback at 6:30 p.m. PKT. Until then, treat Abhishek as doubtful, not out, and not fit. That is exactly where Fulton left it.
