The Indian men’s hockey team displayed a brilliant effort on the field but faltered in the end as their second Pool C match of the 2018 Hockey World Cup against Belgium ended in a 2-2 draw at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Sunday. Simon Gougnard scored a field goal in the 56th minute as the World No.3 Belgium avoided a scare against an upbeat Indian team. The Indian team started off poorly, conceding an early goal in the match. Alexander Hendrickx scored in the eighth minute through a penalty corner giving his team an early lead.
In the second quarter India showed aggression but were tackled brilliantly by the Belgium defenders.Both the teams failed to score as the match went into the half-time.
Lagging 0-1 behind, India started aggressively in the third quarter. Harmanpreet Singh finally scored in the 39th minute through a penalty stroke as India drew level in the match.
Simranjeet Singh, then scored a brilliant field goal in the 47th minute, taking India to a 2-1 lead gain in the third quarter.
Earlier this week, India started their World Cup campaign with a 5-0 win against South Africa. The Manpreet Sin0gh-led side dominated South Africa in all the four quarters of the game, as Mandeep Singh opened the scoring in the tenth minute of the first quarter.
Akashdeep Singh scored India’s second goal in the 12th minute of the same quarter. South Africa lost their steam, eventually letting India score three more in the entire match.
India led 2-0 by the end of the first half of the match.
In the initial stages of the third quarter, India missed a couple of chances but then made a dominating comeback as they completely destroyed the winning hopes of South Africa by scoring two back-to-back goals in the 43rd and 45th minute of the match.
Simranjeet scored the final goal in the fourth quarter to make it 5-0 in India’s favour.
India will play their final pool match against Canada on 8th December.