India captain Harmanpreet Singh felt that his team needed to learn to keep possession better and maintain discipline. India finished joint-ninth with Argentina after it beat South Africa 5-2 at the end of its World Cup campaign.
Last Sunday, the host nation blew a 2-0 lead twice in the penalty shootout defeat to New Zealand in the crossovers. “We could have done better with ball possession. We were trying to force things with ball carrying and long passes that we could have avoided. We shouldn’t have given away cards but even when we had, we managed it well. When we are leading, we need to do better with keeping patience and holding the ball better,” said Harmanpreet, on the team’s problems with controlling games, while taking the lead.
Reviewing the tournament, Harmanpreet said, “We didn’t lose any of the matches, I would say in the New Zealand game, we didn’t do well in the third and fourth quarter. We tried and sometimes it came off and sometimes it didn’t. Overall if you look at the tournament, I would say we did well, but we didn’t expect that this is how we would finish (ninth place). I feel we could have done better in the third and fourth quarter of the New Zealand game.”
The 27-year-old denied that the team struggles to handle pressure in high-stakes matches and also vowed to improve his penalty corner conversion.
“It’s not about pressure. Situations happen in a match, and hockey has become faster these days, so mistakes do happen where you don’t get a lot of time. So, it’s not about pressure. As a defender, we defended well through the tournament. If you look at penalty corners, it’s a good learning for me. I have belief in myself and so do my teammates. I will work on it heading into the next big tournaments,” he said.
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