Nikkin Thimmaiah is still struggling to digest what he did four days ago. Scoring a goal against Australia – the world's best hockey team – is a task in itself, let alone a hat-trick. The 24-year-old did just that to record a famous win for India at the recently-concluded Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia.
Nikkin Thimmaiah is still struggling to digest what he did four days ago. Scoring a goal against Australia – the world's best hockey team – is a task in itself, let alone a hat-trick. The 24-year-old did just that to record a famous win for India at the recently-concluded Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia.
The 4-2 win meant India qualified for the third-fourth place playoff against Korea, and came back with a bronze medal after three years. Thimmaiah played his part in that game too, scoring a goal in regulation time before India won 4-1 on penalty shootout.
But it's the hat-trick that is still fresh in his mind, and the youngster found it hard to put his thoughts into words.
"It was a totally different feeling," Thimmaiah told dna from Bengaluru on Tuesday, a day after the team returned from Malaysia. "I never expected that I will score a hat-trick against such a great team, the World No. 1 team. I was living my dream. It came true for me, thankfully."
Not only did that hat-trick come in front of Thimmaiah's childhood idol, Australia's Jamie Dwyer, it also gave the team its first solid win in the tournament after a string of poor results. According to Thimmaiah, they played fearless hockey against the world champions.
"We didn't have any pressure in that match, we just wanted to win. We had won the 'Test' series in Australia earlier (in November 2014), so we just wanted to give our best. We did give our best. Everyone played fearlessly. I guess it was just my day. I got lucky," he said.
He earned praise from skipper Sardar Singh, who said Thimmaiah raised his level in the tournament.
It was India's first tournament under their new coach Paul Van Ass, and Thimmaiah said it was important for the boys to get a hang of his coaching style.
"This was a big tournament, our first under a new coach, and it was totally different for us. We've been playing under different foreign coaches, where we don't get much time to get used to their coaching styles. But we just listened to whatever he told us, and gave our best on the field. Overall, it went very well under him," Thimmaiah, who also scored in India's opening game against Korea, said.
And like the Dutchman, Thimmaiah too felt that the team played just one bad game in the tournament, a 2-3 loss to Malaysia.
"Honestly, I think we played really well in the first two games. We played better against New Zealand, had more circle penetrations, but the results didn't favour us that day (1-2). We lost against the hosts, and then we really wanted to win the remaining matches. We got really hungry," he said.
Thimmaiah felt that this squad has it in it to beat the top teams consistently, but added that they need to improve on converting scoring opportunities.
"We have a lot of time to prepare for the 2016 Olympics, and we played this tournament without some experienced players like SV Sunil (injured). So once we play our full strength, we can do really great things with this team," he said.
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