Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament 2018: India goes down fighting to Australia
World Cup champions and World Number one Australia brought to halt India's winning spree in the 37th and farewell edition of Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament with a 3-2 win on Wednesday.
The win, second for Australians, also brought India's first defeat in the tournament so far.
It was the 123rd encounters between the two hockey giants that ended in the 82nd win for Aussies.
It was fast and crisp hockey as both the teams played their hearts out. If India could not end the day on even honours, it was primarily for missed chances or some erratic shooting. Skipper Sreejesh played an excellent game bringing off several good saves to restrict the Australian score to three.
Building pressure for an early lead worked well for the World champions as in the sixth minute, they got their first goal through Sharp from a pass that was sent across the goalmouth.
Four minutes later India forced two penalty corners in succession and from the second Varun Kumar made full use of the rebound to put the teams at par.
If one talks about penalty corners, honours were almost shared. It was nine against seven. India got both its goals through penalty corners. After Varun had scored the first, young Harmanpreet scored the second, two minutes from the final whistle.
India, trailing 1-3, till 56th minute withdrew skipper Sreejesh and substituted with an attacker. The move paid dividend as India got its second goal. The Aussies put up a dogged defence to prevent the equaliser.
Interestingly, video referrals taken by Aussies were upheld and those by India rejected.ond game. India has beaten Pakistan 4-0 and Olympic champions Argentina 2-1 in the tournament so far.
Australia and Belgium had played a 3-3 draw and then Australia beat Pakistan 2-1 in the sec
