Indian men’s hockey team Olympic dream shattered by the formidable Great Britain team in just ten minutes as they defeated India 2-0 in the final of the World Group Olympic hockey qualifier to earn Beijing’s ticket at Santiago in Chile on Monday.
India's illustrious record of winning eight gold medals and playing in every Olympic games men's field hockey tournament since 1928 came to a distressing end. Tournament’s highest 8th ranked team stood up to their ranking to win the final frontier for the Olympic qualification.
Barry Middleton opened the account for British team in the fourth minute of the play with a brilliant field goal while Richard Mantell doubled the lead 2-0 in the 10th minute through penalty corner conversion which the Englishmen uphold till last.
On the other hand, much fancied Indian team faltered at the final hurdle to fail to spot the elusive Olympic berth that they have been enjoying with a soaring head in the World-sporting arena for the last 80 years.
The most disheartening factor of the qualifier final was that Indian team players couldn’t be able to score once in 60 minutes of the play even though they had earned series of penalty corners in the latter half, which again exposed the overlong problem of not able to convert short corners.
The other major problem that let India down was their reckless on-field behaviour as they got two more yellow bookings, after getting three in their earlier matches, in the crunch encounter in either half.
Indians defended well restraining Great Britain team to further increase their tally but didn’t find the badly needed goals to secure Olympic berth. Indian players put up a lackluster performance in the finals, as the players could not be able to pass, trap properly and moreover didn’t hold the possession of the ball as well.
Indian team had given a great fighting performance against Great Britain in the group league match earlier, which they lost narrowly by a 2-3 margin after conceding a last minute surprising goal, but the players never looked in their element in the final. The fighting spirit was not visible despite yielding two early goals.
Great Britain started the game with more purpose in their play, immediately pushing India on their heels. In the 4th minute, Barry Middleton received a great pass from Ashley Jackson and didn’t miss the opportunity to open the scoring.
India seemed to have trouble reacting and did not threaten the British defense for a while. James Tindall earned a penalty-corner after a decisive run. Richard Mantell increased the lead with a direct flick.
Great Britain was controlling the midfield quite well, forcing the Indians to start their run from far away or to rely on deep balls easily intercepted by the British defense. Momentum started to shift halfway through the period and Alistair Mcgregor in the British goal was called into action.
With the Indian increasing their pace in quest of goal, the game also became rougher and the umpires had to use their cards to try and cool down the soaring tempers under some scorching heat.
In the last ten minutes of the first half, despite been reduced to ten players after Sardar Singh received a yellow card, India surrounded the English circle but only had one dangerous attempt at goal on a penalty corner by V.R. Raghunath, which was well deflected by Alistair McGregor to deny Indians any goal.
Great Britain was obviously careful to maintain their cohesive defense but they never lacked in its attacking approach.
Tension was high in second half, maintained by the Indian drums in the stands. Great Britain had a superb chance to make the break in the early stages of the period when a run by Richard Alexander created a 3 on 2 situation in the rival citadel, but Jonty Clarke could not control the bouncing ball in front of the open goal.
India were again reduced to ten players when Prabhjot Singh was shown a yellow card for a reckless back tackle, giving some more space to the British players to develop their build-up.
Great Britain created another golden opportunity when Jonty Clarke cleanly beat the Indian custodian one on one but was unlucky as his shot hit the post.
Great Britain played cautiously in the closing stages to avoid exposing themselves to the runs of Sardar Singh and Rajpal Singh. The clock was ticking down and urgency was evident in the Indian ranks, their nervousness confirmed on a series of penalty-corners that they badly spoiled.
So far eleven teams have made it to Beijing Olympic men's competition with only one spot remaining that will come from the last qualifying tournament going to be held in Japan in the month of April.
The ten automatic qualifiers from all over the World are Australia (Oceania champions), Belgium (European bronze medallists), Canada (Pan American champions), China (host country), South Korea (Asian Games winner), the Netherlands (European champions), Pakistan (Asian Games bronze medallist), South Africa (African champions) and Spain (European silver medallist).
New Zealand and Great Britan pocketed their berth by winning the qualifying tournament in Auckland and Chile. The last berth will be decided from the qualifying tournament in Japan in April that includes hosts Japan Malaysia, Italy, Poland, Germany and Switzerland.
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