Olympics 2024: 10 men Indian hockey team defeats Great Britain to reach semi-finals

Indian men's hockey team defeated Great Britain in a tense penalty shootout to reach consecutive semi-finals after 52 years at the Olympics.

Despite playing with one man down, the Indian team showed incredible defence to hold on to the score of 1-1 and defeat GB 4-2 in the penalty shoot-out.

In a rematch of the 2020 Tokyo semi-finals, India started with being tentative on the field and Great Britain came with an all-out attack.

For the first seven minutes, the Indian team was unable to get out of their half with Britain pegging India back with some brilliant passing and possession control.

Britain won two back-to-back penalty corners in the fourth minute but the Indian defence managed to see them out with Sreejesh coming up with a big intervention in the second penalty corner.

After the tentativeness of the first ten minutes, the Indian team started finding ways to enter the British circle.

India also earned three penalty corners with Ollie Payne making a big save to deny Harmanpreet Singh

The second quarter is where the real drama started as Indian defender Amit Rohidas was shown a red card for dangerous play and hitting the opponent in the head.

While the foul looked unintentional, it was a dangerous foul and Amit's send-off meant India was left with 10 players to play the rest of the match.

Amit's red card didn't stop India from scoring the first goal as Harmanpreet Singh scored from the penalty corner in the 22nd minute and made it 1-0 for India.

Great Britain managed to take advantage of the numbers and equalized in the 27th minute with a field goal from Lee Morton.

After half-time, the Indian team looked completely out of sorts and was dominated by the GB attack. However, the Indian defence stood tall and kept clearing the penalty corners.

Sreejesh was incredible in the goal and saved four penalty corners in the third quarter.

India created some chances in the fourth quarter but GB kept their defence intact. The full-time whistle meant that India had defended successfully for 45 minutes without their main defender.

In the penalty shootout, PR Sreejesh made himself big and saved one shot while Conor Williamson struck wide. Harmanpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Upadhyay, and Raj Kumar Pal kept their nerves and won it for India.

India will play either of Germany or Argentina in the semi-finals.