Picture Credit: Twitter
While some had already ruled out the possibility of the men's hockey team making any progress at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games after their heavy 1-7 defeat against Australia, the team led by Manpreet Singh had other ideas. A goal from Simranjeet Singh and a brace from Rupinder Pal Singh helped India register a clinical 3-0 win over Spain in this Pool A encounter. India were dominant in much of the game and their defence, which had been breached as many as seven times in their last game, was also on point as they did not concede a single goal.
The team had their first chance which Simranjeet missed in the eighth minute of the match. The Spanish team them went for the counter-attack and also took a number of shots within the next three-four minutes but India managed to deny them a goal. On India's counterattack then, Simranjeet scored this time to put the team in lead.
Rupinder converted the fourth penalty corner
In the passage of play following that, the Indian team received quite a few penalty corners with Rupinder converting the fourth of them to double India's lead and make it 2-0 going into the second quarter. While Spain tried to attack in the second quarter, the Indians maintained a two-goal lead and Spain went into halftime trailing by 2 goals.
In the second half, India were dominant again but Spain managed to hold them on also getting a penalty corner towards the end of the third quarter but failing to score. In the final quarter, Rupinder Pal scored again to make it 3-0 for India and there was no coming back for the Spanish.
India had conceded three goals in five minutes against Australia
Earlier, this was the same team that had faced a 1-7 defeat against the number 1 ranked Australia. So flawed was their game and so ruthless were Australia, that India conceded three goals in five minutes during the second quarter which practically ended their chance of beating them. However, India now look favourite to secure their place in the quarterfinals, sitting at the number 2 spot in Pool A with 6 points, after which the fate of their journey will depend on their performance in the knockout matches.