Tokyo: India won a historic match against Great Britain in the quarter-final of the men's hockey event of the Tokyo Olympics 2020. With this win, India secured a semi-final place in the Olympics this year. One more win will ensure a silver medal for India in hockey.
India won the semi-final 3-1 courtesy of a brilliant individual goal by Hardik Singh, late in the match and two early goals by Gurjant and Dilpreet. India's goal-keeper Sreejesh was also brilliant today.
It is after 41 years, that the Indian team has managed to get past the quarter-final stage. The last time India reached a semi-final of the Olympic Games was in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. India had gone on to win the gold medal that year.
India will now face Belgium in the semi-finals.
India dominated proceeding in the quarter0final from the beginning. India scored the first goal in the 7th minute of the match in the first quarter, while the second goal was scored in the 16th minute, right after the beginning of the second quarter. Gurjant and Dilpreet were the two goal-scorers for India in the 16th and 7th minute of the game.
The third half of the match was relatively quiet as India went on the defensive and did not allow Great Britain to score any goals. Great Britain had a few chances at the end of the third quarter and finally scored a goal in the dying moments of the third quarter.
The men's team qualified for the knockouts and staged a great comeback after getting bamboozled 1-7 by Australia. India managed to defeat New Zealand, Argentina, Spain and Japan in the pool games.
India's hockey campaign has been a great one so far. The men's team reach the semi-finals, while, the women's teams have qualified for the quarter-finals. The men's team won it in style by winning four out of their five league matches while the women's team got lucky as they qualified on the basis of Ireland's loss in the final match of the pool against Great Britain.