Picture Credit: Twitter
India and Argentina met again on 19 June (Sunday) at HC Rotterdam. Yesterday, India had emerged victorious over the Olympics silver medalist in a shootout after a 3-3 draw but this time around they conceded a 2-3 defeat.
The first quarter witnessed no goals scored by both the teams and stayed competitive to not give away freebies.
Then the second quarter witnessed Salima Tete dodging four opposition players and keeping the ball in front before sending the ball to the far end of the cage to give India a 1-0 lead in the 24th minute of the game.
Argentina takes the lead in the third quarter to stun India
With close to seven minutes left, Argentina got the stroke of luck as they got the equalizer, thanks to Delfina, who forced the ball to loop over the goal-keeper Savita.
In the next minute, Team India got two penalty corners, but could not convert them into a goal.
A couple of minutes later, Eugenia Trinchinetti was fantastic with her deflections at the far post to get a lead of 2-1 in the game through the penalty corner.
With close to two minutes and 30 seconds remaining, the top-scorer Agustina Gorzelany delivered a goal with a conventional drag-flick, which helped Argentina to finish 3-1 after the end of the third quarter.
India put up a valiant fight in the fourth quarter, but Argentina holds its fort well
Deep Grace Ekka displayed an absolute pin-point accuracy in a penalty corner to dart a goal in the 48th minute of the game to give much-needed confidence to the team, and the score line read 2-3. However, Argentina holds India well in the remaining time and won the game.
India is third on the FIH Pro League points table with four victories in 12 games. They still have two more games to be played against the United States on 21 and 22 June. It was the final league match of the World No. 2 Argentina, who will lift their maiden FIH Pro League title with 13 wins in 16 games.