Champions Challenge: NZ beat India

POOR START: India failed to restrict Kiwi forwards in the last 10 minutes.

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Keywords: New Zealand, India

Boom (Belgium): The rains did come as a dampener. But the cloak of disappointment that wrapped itself around the Indian team after the 0-2 loss to New Zealand would take some peeling away.

The players walked away in small groups desperate to get away to the hotel while Coach Joaquim Carvalho could have been given the benefit of the doubt if he had failed to attend the customary press conference.

But he did well to hide his disappointment. Sugar-wrapping his criticism of the Indian team, he simply, said," You can’t blame the conditions. The forwards didn’t click, the midfield gave away too many balls and we should have scored from the two penalty corners we earned."

In a way, it was a brief but severe indictment of the Indian team.

"Apart from that, we gave too much space to them to receive the ball. And the defence committed crucial errors."

Except for a five-minute respite in the break, the rains never stopped making the turf heavy, virtually making the Indian forwards ineffective in playing the reverse ball.

The New Zealanders exploited it better as their bigger forwards made up the lack of speed with power in their legs as they hunted down the stray balls ferociously.

"Our forwards just lacked the flow," explained Carvalho. "Normally, we play with the rhythm and knowing that we tried three systems of play but they couldn’t raise the level."

India’s trump card Sandeep Singh could have wrenched the match away from New Zealand if he had been on target with his first two penalty corners, one in each half.

But the accuracy was missing.