Indian Junior Men's Hockey Team suffer heart-break 2-3 loss to Great Britain

Johor Bahru (Malaysia), 13 October 2018: The Indian Junior Men’s Hockey team suffered a heart-break 2-3 loss to Great Britain who had earlier beaten the Mandeep Mor-led squad in the Round Robin Stage here at the 8th Sultan of Johor Cup 2018 on Saturday. The India Colts, who had won Bronze last year, settled for a Silver Medal.

India made a strong start to their Final encounter with an early PC opportunity. The effort was brilliantly capitalized in the re-take by Vishnukant Singh in the 4th minute. Great Britain were quick to overcome the 0-1 deficit as they equalised in the 7th minute through Daniel West’s field goal.

While the second quarter was evenly fought between the two teams as they challenged each other with good playing structure and tested each other’s defensive abilities, India unfortunately count not covert the chances they created in the striking circle.

Great Britain upped the ante in the third quarter as they built on a strong attack, making several openings in the striking circle. They scored two crucial goals in the 39th minute and 42nd minute through James Oates that changed the course of the match. A 3-1 lead gave Great Britain the edge going into the final quarter. Though India’s Abhishek scored a goal in the 55th minute, the team could not recover from the goals they conceded in the third quarter.