After disappointment, despair

Defending champions India missed out on the bronze medal after going down 5-6 via tie-breaker to Spain in the Rabobank Junior World Cup hock...

Defending champions India missed out on the bronze medal after going down 5-6 via tie-breaker to Spain in the Rabobank Junior World Cup hockey tournament here today.

India, who led 1-0 at the break on a ninth minute penalty corner goal by Hari Prasad, failed to build on the advantage as Spain equalised in the 38th minute through a Jorge Rodriguez penalty corner conversion.

In the tie-breaker that followed the barren extra-time, Spanish goalkeeper Andreu Mollet dived low to his left to stop Vivek Gupta’s attempt with the first stroke and that turned the tide against India. Spain converted all their five strokes through Miguel Delas, Jorge Rodriguez, David Alegre, Andreu Enrich and Pepe Borrell in that order. For India, Dhananjay Mahadik, Sandeep Singh, Tushar Khandekar and Ajmer Singh came good.

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The Indian camp thought they were done in by an umpiring blunder in the 65th minute when a goal by V Raja, who deflected a Sandeep Singh free-hit, was disallowed. Umpire Nathan Stagno from Gibraltar first awarded a goal to India. However, the Spanish players surrounded Stagno and disputed the decision. Stagno consulted his colleague Erik Klein-Nagelvoort (Holland) and then reversed his decision to award a 16-yard hit to Spain.

Stagno ruled that an Indian player had lifted the ball dangerously when in fact it appeared that the ball was first deflected by a Spanish stick and Raja swatted it home.

India’s coach Harendra Singh said after the game: “I do not agree with the decision. It is high time that the FIH introduced a third umpire like in cricket to rule on close decisions.”

That apart, the game was evenly balanced right through with the Indians holding a slight advantage in terms of ball possession. But they were allowed little room due to tight marking and it was the individual skill of the players that saw India make several dangerous inroads.

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“My apologies to all my countrymen for the disappointing end to our World Cup campaign. We did our best, but it was not enough,” concluded Harendra.

Argentina stun Australia

Argentina scored a last gasp-goal to win the Rabobank Junior World Cup shocking Australia 2-1 in the final. Pedro Ibarra, the man with a golden arm, scored from a penalty corner in the 70th minute to help Argentina win the title. Ibarra had earlier scored the scored the golden goal in the team’s 2-1 success against Spain in the semis.