Sports Bulletin Report
Lausanne (Switzerland):-India overcame Great Britain 4-2 on a penalty shoot-out after playing a 4-4 draw regular time of 60 minutes. Later in the day, the Belgian women continued their journey on a royal road in the mini-tournament, claiming a comfortable 3-1 victory over China.
India beat Great Britain 4-4 (SO: 4-2)
India got the first penalty corner and Captain Harmanpreet Singh made the most of it, dragging it into the left corner to take the lead 1-0 in a vital encounter, as the opposite side responded almost immediately, earning a penalty corner just 25 seconds later. Sam Ward’s drag flick caught a small deflection off the edge of Amit Rohidas’s stick for the equaliser.
With just over five minutes to go in the third quarter, Ward made sure that GB stayed in touch with his 100th international goal. This time, Pathak just couldn’t get enough stick on Ward’s strike from the penalty corner.
An action-packed final quarter saw Ward completing his hat-trick with a field goal, so finding the equaliser for GB at 3-3. India then regained the lead five minutes later, Dilpreet Singh, Vivek Prasad and Abishek combining to put their team in front. But another beautiful strike from Ward for his first four-goal haul in GB colours took the match to a shootout. Rupert Shipperley and Phil Roper missed their chances while the Indians slotted in all of theirs to take the 4-2 win.
Belgium beat China women (3-1):
Belgium took the lead in the first quarter when Charlotte Engelbert’s dink into the circle on the reverse was fired into the bottom left corner by Justine Rasir. The Belgians doubled that lead in the second quarter. Having turned it over on the 23, Barbara Nelen drove it into the circle for a well-taken strike by Emily White.
Belgium still held that 2-0 lead heading into the half-time break but knew not to take anything for granted after seeing the Chinese fighting their way back from 3-1 down and pushing GB all the way a day earlier.
But a great comeback was not on the cards for the Chinese. The first time Belgian goalkeeper Elodie Picard was brought into action was towards the end of the third quarter, but she was up to the task to keep Zou Meirong’s shot out of goal.
A much better final quarter from China saw them playing themselves back into the game. The ball was recycled off a good penalty corner variation and fell to Liu Chencheng who drilled it in to halve the deficit.
After the goal, China immediately pulled off their keeper to push for an equaliser with an extra player. But it cost them when they conceded a penalty corner soon after and none of the defenders could stop Stephanie Vanden Borre’s drag into the top of the goal to seal the 3-1 win.
