Bhubaneswar, 11 Feb: Veteran goalkeeper PR Sreejesh turned out to be the saviour as the Indian men’s hockey team defeated world number one Netherlands 4-2 via a shoot-out in the FIH Pro League here on Sunday.
\nSreejesh made three fine saves in the shoot-out to hand India the bonus two points after both the teams were locked at 2-2 at the end of regulation 60 minutes. Netherlands took one points from the match.
\nIn the shoot-out, skipper Harmanpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay and Shamsher Singh scored for world number three India.
\nIn the regulation time, Hardik Singh (13th minute) and Harmanpreet (58th) found the net for India, while Jip Janssen (30th) and Koen Bijen scored for the Dutch.
\nNetherlands put the home team defence under pressure in the initial eight minutes of the match with play mostly restricted to the Indian circle.
\nBut the Indian defence dished out a solid performance to weather the initial storm.
\nThe Indians initially failed to keep possession of the ball but gained in confidence as the match progressed.
\nIn the 12th minute, India earned back-to-back penalty corners but Harmanpreet, in his 200th international match, failed to breach the Dutch defence from the set pieces.
\nThe Indians, however, grew in confidence and took control of the proceedings.
\nIt took a brilliant field effort from Hardik to hand India the lead after Netherlands’ early domination.
\nHardik stole the ball from the Indian half and joined hands with Sukhjeet Singh to score his 10th international goal.
\nIt came off a brisk counter-attack with Hardik at the forefront as he teamed up with Sukhjeet before putting the ball into the net from an acute angle.
\nHardik then earned India a penalty corner in the 24th minute, but the chance was wasted. A minute later, Netherlands secured a penalty corner but Janssen’s try went just wide.
\nJust 12 seconds from half-time, Netherlands drew level from a penalty corner with Janssen scoring his 52nd career goal with a powerful flick as both the teams shared the honours in first two quarters.
\nJust like they started the match, the Dutch were on the attack after the change of ends and pressed the Indian defence continuously.
\nTheir efforts bore fruit nine minutes into the third quarter when they took the lead from a penalty corner.
\nKoen Bijen scored from a rebound after Jasper Brinkman’s flick was saved by Indian goalie Krishan Bahadur Pathak.
\nNetherlands kept up the pressure and secured another penalty corner at the stroke of the third quarter but this time, the Indians defended stoutly.
\nIn the 47th minute, Netherlands got another penalty corner but the Indians defended well.
\nTrailing by a goal, the Indians pressed hard in the final 10 minutes and secured two more penalty corners in succession, but wasted both.
\nThe Indians didn’t lose heart and went into offensive and secured another penalty corner just two minutes from the final hooter after going for video referral and this time, Harmanpreet stepped up and converted the chance to level the scores and take the game into shoot-out.
\nWhile India defeated Spain 4-1 on Saturday, Netherlands crushed Ireland 5-1.
\nIndia will next play Australia here on February 15. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bhubaneswar, 11 Feb: Veteran goalkeeper PR Sreejesh turned out to be the saviour as the Indian men’s hockey team defeated world number one Netherlands 4-2 via a shoot-out in the FIH Pro League here on Sunday. Sreejesh made three fine saves in the shoot-out to hand India the bonus two points after both the teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-234567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}