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Olympics: India wins in penalty shootout to move to hockey semis
This win ensures a place in the medal rounds.
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Mandeep Singh / ImageCredits: TheHockeyIndia/X
India did it and it was no less than a miracle. Playing the last 43 minutes with 10 men, it not only held 1988 Olympic champions Great Britain to a 1-1 draw but also scored an exciting 4-2 win in the subsequent penalty shoot-out to earn a place in the semi-finals of the 2024 Olympic Games Hockey competition.
It was a controversial start to the knockout round with one of the ground umpires waving a red card to Indian deep defender Amit Rohidas in the 17th minute for hooking a British player, William Calnan. Shellshocked by the dreaded award, Indian players protested but to no avail. They did not reflect they were impacted as they remained high in their spirits. They continued to attack their opponents with a vengeance.
It was the spirit of fighting the odds, including umpiring blues, that helped bronze medallists of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, to take the lead in the 22nd minute, when Harmanpreet Singh with yet another exemplary leadership display, found the target from the fourth penalty corner earned by his team.
The goal shook the Britons. Playing with 10, India conveyed a strong message. There was no let-up in the spirits of the team players as they accepted the challenge to play the rest of the game without their dependable defender.
Led by senior players, including goalkeeper PR Sreejesh, and former skipper Manpreet Singh, the Indian team rallied around its leader, Harmanpreet in both defense and offense.
The Britons put everything into their game to exploit the depleted defense of their opponents. Their efforts met with partial success as just before the hiatus, Lee Morton restored parity for them.
In the second half, India was on the defensive for most of the time. It did work out some good moves but the feeling that the absence of their experienced defender handicapped them nagged them. They quickly fell back after every move as they tried to revive the lead.
Great Britain was left clueless about how to break the solid defense the spirited India was putting up. It forced four penalty corners in the third quarter after wasting five in the first half.
Before the teams could break for a breather at the end of the third quarter, India had yet another shock in the store. Umpire Rogers, who had shown Red Card to Amit Rohidas now waved a green card to Sumit. Intriguingly, India was reduced to nine players at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth.
The British players, however, could not capitalize on these depletions faced by their opponents.
In the fourth quarter, though they could not win any penalty corner, Britons came close to scoring with Sreejesh executing a brilliant save of the goalward shot taken by William Calman.
Indian team heaved a sigh of relief as the game ended in a 1-1 stalemate. The penalty shootout was enforced. Great Britain scored from the first two attempts through James Albery and Zach Williams. The third saw Canor Williams hitting wide of the target and Indian goalkeeper Sreejesh executing a spectacular save off Phillip Roper.
Harmanpreet led the Indian penalty shootout campaign with a clean flick after beating the British goalkeeper, Olie Payne. Fellow players Sukhjit Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, and Rajkumar Pal, made no mistakes in the penalty shootout to give India a superb 4-2 win and a passage to the semi-finals.
Olympian Dilip Tirkey, President of Hockey India, wanted the International Hockey Federation, to take a serious view of the umpiring aberrations in crucial games like the quarterfinals of the Olympic competition.
"Umpires must think twice about taking such harsh decisions as it impacts not only the game but also its overall image," he said while keeping his silence on filing an official protest over the standard of umpiring in the game.
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