India deservedly secured a first shot at an Olympic hockey medal since 1980 as they capitalised on British errors in the Tokyo heat to edge a stressful encounter 3-1 after an energy-sapping encounter at the Oi Hockey Stadium.
Dilpreet Singh and Gurjant Singh were the recipients of defensive lapses by Ian Sloan and Liam Sanford to put India 2-0 up by half-time, Sam Ward’s penalty corner pulling one back for a dominant GB in the second half.
Yet with India reduced to 10 men with a seemingly harsh yellow six minutes left, and Britain throwing everything at their opponents, Hardik Singh’s sublime strike on the break sent the 1988 champions packing back to Bisham as world hockey’s well-funded programme ended once again without a medal.
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This was a victory for hockey. It will definitely raise hockey’s profile in India. More money will pour into the sport and this will help hockey worldwide.
India in some sense deserved success as they took their chances and GB didn’t and gifted India 2 goals. GB dominated the game though and played some good hockey apart from taking their chances. The Indian yellow card was definitely a yellow – u can’t slide tackle anywhere let alone in the 25 / India we’re very good at breaking down the play and got away with it. GB were getting better as the tournament progressed but were undone by two bad errors
Based on your analysis of the game if I were encouraging a child to take up this sport or most team sports, I would advise they were a forward as when teams lose the analysis tends to be the defence were poor or coach didn’t make the right team selection but when a team wins it’s was super forwards, brilliant goals. It is a team sport and costly errors are made both with lapses in defence as well as missed opportunities.