Spirited India go down in Azlan Shah hockey final

SPIRITED EFFORT: India put aside all controversies and ended runners-up at the Azlan Shah tournament. (File photo)

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Keywords: Argentina, India, Final, Azlan Shah Tournament

Sandeep Singh put it across Argentinian goalkeeper and captain Manuel Vivaldi without much trouble to open the account for India and score his ninth goal of the tournament.

But India could not hold on to the lead for long. Four minutes later, hard working right winger Tomas Argento sent in a cross and veteran Mario Almada netted the equaliser for Argentina.

A few minutes before the break, Argentina came close to take the lead when defender Gilardi's freehit was tapped by Facundo, but the Indian defence rose to the occasion and thwarted his attempt.

But players of both the teams got into a scuffle in the melee forcing the umpires to halt the match for six minutes.

The second half was relatively incident free with both the sides exercising a degree of caution. Though the Argentinians were better in terms of attacks, the Indians also made some inroads.

Argentina got an easy penalty corner five minutes before the hooter, but Gilardi's flick narrowly missed the target.

In the second half, India got two short corners in 42nd and 53rd minutes, but Sandeep could not bring cheers to capacity crowd that supported his team.

As the scores remained tied at 1-1 after the regulation time, the match went into extra-time where Almada shot home the golden goal to seal the issue in Argentina's favour.