Sardar & Co. fail to get past Belgium in semi-final

India defender V.R. Raghunath vies for the ball with Belgium striker Tom Boon in the semi-final of the HWL Final in Raipur on Saturday. Belgium won 1-0.

Inconsistency continued to haunt India as they conceded an early goal to lose 0-1 to Belgium and crash out of the title race of the Hockey World League Final here on Saturday.

India conceded a soft goal in the fifth minute of their semi-final encounter when Cedric Charlier scored from a field strike for Belgium, which eventually separated both the teams at the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Stadium.

Belgium now take on Australia in the summit clash on Sunday while India play the Netherlands in the bronze medal playoff earlier in the day.

The Indians were slow off the blocks as they hardly troubled the Belgian defence in the first two quarters. But the hosts came out with more purpose after the change of ends to create numerous scoring opportunities but the forwardline failed to finish off the moves.

After failing to register a single shot at the opposition goal in the first 30 minutes, India managed 11 tries in the last two quarters but failed to convert those.

The Indians also enjoyed 59 per cent possession in the match to their opponents’ 41, while the hosts made 24 circle penetrations compared to Belgium’s 21. Interestingly, both the teams failed to secure a single penalty corner in the match.

But things did not look good for India even before the resumption of the match as goalkeeper P.R. Sreejesh hurt himself above the knee in the warm-up session and did not take part in the national anthem ceremony, drawing fears that he might not start in the XI. However, he recovered in time and took the field.

As India coach Roelant Oltmans said after their quarter-final duel, he could not guarantee a consistent performance from his wards in the next game, his words turned out to be true as the Indians looked out of sorts in all departments of the game in the opening two quarters.

After the inspired show against Great Britain in the quarter-finals, the Indians on the day lacked purpose and seemed running out of ideas when the ball was in their possession, at least in the opening half.