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Hockey

Road to the quarterfinals for the Indian men's hockey team

They will be looking to repeat their group stage performances when they face Great Britain today, but how have they managed to reach the quarter finals?

Indian mens hockey team (Source: Hockey India)
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Indian men's hockey team (Source: Hockey India)

By

C.C. Chengappa

Updated: 1 Aug 2021 7:19 AM GMT

India will face Great Britain in the 4th Men's hockey quarter final match that is to be held today. The team has so far been brilliant apart from one bad performance against Australia. We take a look at all the matches they have played till now and the road traversed till the quarter final showdown.


How did they qualify for the Olympics?

India qualified by beating Russia in the 2019 Olympic qualifiers held in Bhubaneswar. They won by an aggregate score of 11-3 over two legs.

India v New Zealand

India kicked off their Tokyo Olympics campaign with an intense 3-2 victory over the Kiwis. It was the heroics of Harmanpreet and Rupinder Pal Singh that brought the much needed first match confidence. Despite being pegged back twice, India managed to keep their nerve and finish with the targeted victory.

India v Australia

It was thought to be India's day when they went up by a goal in the second minute. Australia however are never ones to take lightly and in the 2nd quarter, they scored 3 goals in 5 minutes. The final score was 7-1 and it was a complete disaster for India as far as everything was concerned.

India v Spain

Simranjeet and Rupinderpal Singh stepped up to give India a comfortable victory over Spain. It was a much-needed victory after the drubbing by Australia, but India was never going to lose this one given that their position in the table had to be 2nd in order to comfortably make it to the quarter finals.

India v Argentina

This was supposed to be the toughest groups stage match after Australia given that Argentina won the Gold at Rio 2016. It did seem like it would either be a stalemate between the two teams or would end up with a narrow score line.

India managed to ease through with a 3-1 victory through sublime penalty corner conversions and goals scored by Vivek Prasad, Varun Kumar and Harmanpreet Singh. India was quite wasteful throughout the match but were defensively solid.

India v Japan

The final groups stage match saw a few key players rested such as Rupinder Pal Singh. It seemed like an easy game for India but there were a few nervous moments given that Japan was playing for their pride.

The final score was 5-3 for India but not before Japan had also fought to keep the score at 2-1 and 3-2. The Indian defense had a lot of work on their hands but at the end of it, managed to get by.


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