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Hockey World Cup
Former India men's hockey head coach Roelant Oltmans has blamed the lack of tactical awareness and a non-existent club culture for India's early exit in the ongoing edition of the FIH Men's World Cup. India lost the crossover match to New Zealand and failed to make the quarter-finals after going down 4-5 in sudden death. India's current head coach Graham Reid had also voiced concern about the lack of club culture after the Hockey India League (HIL) became defunct in 2017. "There is no club culture in India, that is for sure. And the players need to continue playing games, that this team is lacking," Oltmans, who was at the helm of affairs of the Indian team from 2015 to 2017, told PTI in an interview. "These Indians are fantastic hockey players, no doubt about that. But you need to know what to do at which moment of the game. If all of a sudden, you are 11 against 10, what are you going to do?" added the Dutchman, who also served as the High Performance Director of Indian hockey fr
Hosts India made a shock exit from the FIH Men's World Cup after losing to New Zealand in sudden death in their must-win crossover match in front of a relentlessly cheering 15000 home crowd here on Sunday. The loss ended India's hopes of a Wold Cup medal after 48 years. Despite vociferous support from the jampacked Kalinga Stadium crowd, India allowed New Zealand to come back from two-goal deficit in the regulation time as the match ended at 3-3 in the regulation time. In the penalty shootout, the scores were also tied after the first five set of strikes, and the match was finally decided via sudden death. Captain Harmanpreet Singh had the golden chance to take India to victory in sudden death but he failed to do that as he missed the target. Veteran goalkeeper PR Sreejesh made two saves in the shootout to rescue India after they were 2-3 down. He saved another one during the sudden death and got himself injured and Krishan Pathak replaced him in the next three rounds of ...
India were far from being impressive in their 4-2 win over Wales in their final FIH Men's Hockey World Cup pool game and twin goal scorer Akashdeep Singh said the home team felt the absence of injured midfielder Hardik Singh. Hardik, who sustained a hamstring injury and missed the Wales match, is uncertain for the remainder of the tournament. India needed to beat Wales by a margin of eight goals against Wales on Thursday to top Pool D and qualify directly for the quarterfinals. But they failed to do so and will now face New Zealand in their crossover match on Sunday to make it to the last eight stage. "We could not score too many goals in the first two quarters, we scored only one. But we were able to score three more in the third and final quarters. I was able to contribute for the team, so I am very happy," said the 28-year-old Akashdeep, who has played for more than 200 senior international matches. "We could not make it to the quarterfinals directly but we hope to be there by .