Reduced to playing with only ten men for two thirds of the match, India brought off a Houdini-like escape act to get past Britain via the penalty shootout and enter the hockey semifinals in the Olympic Games here on Sunday.
India and Britain were locked 1-1 at the end of regulation time before the eight-time champions marched into the semifinals by outwitting the latter 4-2 in a rip-roaring penalty shoot out to trigger wild celebrations in the Indian camp, backed by vociferous support from sections of the crowd at the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium.
India, down by one man for 43 minutes of the quarter final tie after Amit Rohidas was controversially red-carded, defended with gusto with man-of-the-match Parattu Ravindran Sreejesh guarding the goal rock-like to force the match into a penalty shootout.
Sreejesh, who came up with save after save from the start of the match, also brought off a crucial save by stopping a goal-bound strike with aplomb in the tie breaker to truly emerge as the man of the moment.
The veteran goalkeeper was fully backed by the rest of the team who ran tirelessly to help Sreejesh defend the Indian citadel when the need arose.
India succeeded in the shootout on all four tries through captain Harmanpreet Singh, who also scored the first goal off the first off four penalty corners earned in the 22nd minute, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Upadhyay and Rajkumar Pal.
Britain, who equalised through Lee Morton in the 27th minute, scored through James Albery and Zach Wallace while Conor Willamson struck over the crosspiece and Philip Roper’s try was blocked by Sreejesh.
India, in fact, took the lead after Rohidas was given the marching orders in the 17th minute of the game by South Africa’s S Rapaport when his stick was declared to have struck a British player through a video replay when the action was near the centre line.
This unexpected setback brought out the best from the entire Indian team who all fell back repeatedly to help Sreejesh keep the Brits at bay. In all he made ten saves in regulation time.
Britain also did not have the sort of skills inside the ring and repeatedly were foiled by a crowded Indian defense whenever they made deep inroads.
They forced as many as ten penalty corners but couldn’t find the mark from any of those.
India, at the other end, earned four and got their lone goal in regulation time through the first set-piece.
India made eight attempts at the rival goal in contrast to 21 by Britain.r
Both Sreejesh and Manpreet, who played as the extra defender after the sending off of Rohidas, and Sreejesh hailed the victory as “a total team effort”, when speaking to reporters after the memorable win.
“It was a total team effort. Our defense was good though we were ten down. We do practice with one man short due to temporary suspensions but did not expect someone to be shown a red card. I adopted the role of the extra defender after we fell short by one player. We were determined to win despite being one-man down. We displayed that dedication.
“Players adapted admirably to the situation and raised their game to match it. I don’t know how many kilometres they must have run today, but everyone was running hard and taking care to clear the rebounds whenever they happened. It was a total team effort,” said Sreejesh.
“Defend to win, that’s our mantra. I don’t know how many saves that I made. All I wanted to do was not to concede any more goals after it became 1-1.”
“The coach told us we need to maintain our composure as we will get some chances to score. We did get some chances but couldn’t avail of them,” revealed Manpreet about the inputs from coach Charles Fulton at halftime.
Both played it safe when asked about the umpiring decision to send off Rohidas.
“Probably the third umpire saw something about the stick hitting. It’s better not to dwell on that incident as we have won,” said Manpreet.
“You can’t blame anybody for that as umpires follow the rules and do the best they can. They are doing a wonderful job throughout the tournament. Our coaches might take it up with the panel and revert to us,” Sreejesh quipped.