A 10-man Indian hockey team registered an unbelievable win over Great Britain in the first quarterfinal of the men's hockey competition at the Paris Olympics on Sunday, August 4. India outclassed the British side in a shootout to register a sensational 4-2 win after the game was tied 1-1 in the regular time.
The Indian team was put a man down after Amit Rohidas was shown a red card in the second minute of the second quarter. The Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists didn't bog down a bit and scored soon in the 22nd minute. After winning a penalty corner, India captain Harmanpreet Singh opened the scoresheets to send a man down Indian team 1-0 up in the contest. But the British side found an equaliser soon. While the British were not able to find a goal from penalty corners, Lee Morton found the back of the net from the field to achieve parity.
The already man-down Indian team was put under the pump in the third quarter when Great Britain kept pressing in the attack. They won several penalty corners and had possession for the majority of it. But the legendary PR Sreejesh stood like a wall in front of the goal, making one save after the other to keep India at parity.
It became worse when Sumit was shown a green card in the dying moments of the quarter for a two-minute suspension which ended at the start of the last quarter. In the fourth quarter, the teams looked for a strike but could not find one as the game went into the shootouts.
In the shootout, James Albery scored for Great Britain first, while captain Harmanpreet put it level 1-1. While Zach Wallace and Sukhjeet scored to take it 2-2, Great Britain failed to score and then Lalit Upadhyay took India to a 3-2 lead. Phillip Roper could not score the next one and Raj Kumar Pal nailed the next one to help India win the shootout 4-2 and win the match.
