Mumbai: At the beginning, there was hope. They needed to win by at least two goals. And there was a stirring pep talk by captain Harmanpreet Singh in the team huddle.
India had not won a World Cup title since their one and only triumph in 1975. The challenge to end that 51-year wait saw the world No.8 team fail to win any of the three matches against higher-ranked opponents – losing each match against No.4 England, No.1 Netherlands, and No.7 Argentina by a margin of two goals. India conceded 16 goals across the five matches played so far (the consolation classification match will be played on Friday). Of those, 12 were field goals.
“We can do this! The captain exclaimed again and again. But what started with promise and a war cry ended in a whimper. With it, ended a campaign that had more moments of despair than praise. Alarmingly though, there were defensive frailties on display throughout the tournament.
“For us, our defence was not so good,” Hardik said after the match. To get to the semi-final, India needed to win by at least two goals and hope the Dutch beat England in the match later in the evening. Yet, Argentina came off the blocks quickly. Tomas Domene carried the ball into the shooting circle from the right flank and played a square pass across the goal. The unmarked Joaquin Toscani, stationed near the far post, collected and slotted past HS Mohith in the Indian goal. Yashdeep Siwach attempted a low crossfield pass in his own half, but it was intercepted by an Argentine attacker. As the shot on target came in, the ball crashed into Siwach’s leg for a penalty stroke that Domene converted without much fuss for his eight goal of the tournament – the highest scorer for the competition so far. Sukhjeet got his second goal of the match after a clever deflection from a pass Mandeep Singh smashed into the circle. And then in the final minute of play, Hardik Singh converted a penalty stroke to reduce the deficit to two. “We wanted to play the game normally and the goal would come. It just didn’t happen as we planned.”
