Defending Junior (men) World Cup champions India redeemed some prestige by winning its first match in the 8-nation Under-21 Invitational Tournament in Madrid on Saturday. India defeated Austria 4-2 in a classification game for fifth to eighth position.
Earlier, India lost all its pool games. After going down 0-4 to Australia, India subsequently lost its games to the Netherlands 2-3 and Spain 1-3 to finish at the bottom of the pool with no point.
Austria had finished third in its pool as it had one win to its credit for having defeated Great Britain by a solitary goal.
Two penalty corner conversions by Sanjay, first in the 15th minute and the second in the 23rd minute, had given India a morale boosting lead before the Austrians hit back with a brilliant goal by Oliver Kern in the 34th minute.A minute later Rahul Raibahar again consolidated India's position with a field goal.
Austrians did not give up and fought gamely and managed to reduce the margin again, this time in the 49th minute, with a fine goal by Philip Schippen. Prabhjot Singh, however, had different ideas as he found the target in the 51st minute to give India 4-2 win.
