Hockey World Cup: Too many mistakes confound India’s coach Graham Reid

BHUBANESWAR: All the noise at the Kalinga stadium here on Sunday night came from a small group of players dressed in black. As New Zealand celebrated their victory over India, a deathly silence hung all around. For a while, Indian players were too stunned to even exchange commiserations. At one end of the ground, Akashdeep Singh and Hardik Singh sat inside a goal, lost in thought. What went wrong? Indian chief coach Graham Reid was just as baffled as the rest of the hockey world. Asked why India struggled to convert circle penetration and what was lacking, the Australian replied straight-faced: “It’s interesting, it is a very good question. I don’t know the answer.” TEAM SELECTION

From the team which won the bronze in Tokyo, 13 players featured in this competition. India missed three of those who could have been game changers. Simranpreet Singh, after being injured last year, has dropped out of the coach’s scheme of things. Questions on Sumit and Dilpreet’s exclusion have remained unanswered as will the inclusion of some players like Lalit Upadhyay, Vivek Sagar Prasad and Nilam Xess. Misfiring Upadhyay’s only face-saving performance was against New Zealand.

PTI PhotoCHOICE OF PLAYERS FOR SHOOTOUT The shootout scenarios are a part of training drills and it’s safe to assume the line-up for the pressure-cooker eight seconds is well planned. But one can’t help finding a flaw in the strategy. Harmanpreet (168 matches), Rajkumar Pal (26), Sukhjeet Singh (20), Shamsher Singh (51) and Abhishek (32) were the shootout choices. Only Rajkumar lived up to expectations. To send out a low-on-confidence-and-form skipper with a bunch of youngsters proved to be suicidal especially when you had the experience of Manpreet Singh (318