lose for India in semifinal against Belgium, will compete for bronze.

Key sentence:

• India men’s hockey group lost their elimination round match against the 2018 titleholders Belgium on Tuesday at the Tokyo Olympics.
• Belgium returned solid in the second quarter, getting upwards of four punishment corners inside only minutes.

India men’s hockey group lost their elimination round match against the 2018 titleholders Belgium on Tuesday at the Tokyo Olympics, hence passing up an opportunity to make their first Olympic last in more than forty years. 

India’s last time played men’s hockey last at the Olympics was back in 1980 when the group had won the gold award. 

India’s first gathering against Belgium since their 2-3 loss in the FIH Pro League match in February 2019. However, India’s mission is not over as they would contend in the Bronze award match on Thursday. 

Then, they will confront the washout of the second elimination round among Australia and Germany. 

India got off to a brave beginning, yielding an early punishment corner in the elimination round. Rupinder Pal Singh diverted a ball that Felix Denayer had placed within the scoring circle. 

Regardless of Alexander Hendrickx not being on the turf by then, Luick Luypaert benefited as much as possible from the chance and scored an early objective for Belgium in the second moment of the main quarter. 

It took India nine minutes to restore order. Even out fixing as Harmanpreet Singh crushed an amazing drag flick past Belgium goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch after the World Champions yielded a punishment corner. 

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After two minutes, Amit Rohidas passed a ball to Mandeep Singh inside the circle, and the Indian forward transformed a hatchet shot into the nets to give India the lead. 

Yet, Belgium returned solid in the second quarter, getting upwards of four punishment corners inside only minutes. Hendrickx scored his twelfth objective of the Olympics from a punishment corner, getting things back to even out terms as the two groups went into halftime with two objectives. 

The second from last quarter was a cagey undertaking with neither one nor the other groups getting an excessive number of changes; however, India’s powerlessness to forestall punishment corners cost them in the last 15 minutes. 

Alexander Hendrickx scored two additional objectives, the fourth one coming from a punishment stroke. 

With India putting an additional assailant on the field, and PR Sreejesh not on the turf, Belgium veteran John-John Dohmen scored the fifth objective in the withering minutes. In any case, by that point, it was a simple custom. 

It has been a decent excursion for India men’s hockey group in Tokyo Olympics up until this point, crushing New Zealand 3-2 in their initial gathering game, and afterwards getting prevails upon Argentina (3-1), Germany (2-0), Spain (3-1) and Japan (5-3) in the gathering matches. 

Notwithstanding the 7-1 loss against Australia, India had dominated all their matches until this point yet couldn’t outperform the Belgium test.