Paris Olympics 2024: 10-men India 'Shoot' Great Britain out to play second successive Olympic Semi-Final

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬: The tears in the eyes of an Indian Commentator were the emotions of every Indian when India's Raj Kumar Pal’s hit in penalty shoot-out successfully ended in the goalpost dodging Great Britain’s Goalkeeper Ollie Payne. Pal’s winning goal came after two deciding saves by the ‘Great Wall’ of India and the goal-keeping legend PR Sreejesh to help India secure a spot in the semi-finals of the Paris Olympics 2024.

The shoot-out scoreline ended 4-2 which propelled India to the semi-finals of the Olympics for the second consecutive time after they played last time in Tokyo 2020. Notably, Harmanpreet Singh’s men fought full-strength Great Britain with their 10 men after a red card to Amit Rohidas only in the second quarter of the game.

India’s 'amazing display of Hockey' included their amazing penalty-corner defence and some ‘legendary’ saves by PR Sreejesh. The strategy and game played by the men in blue were not easy against the in-form Great Britain and without their important man on the field.

Indian excellence denied the ‘Red Card’ impact

The first quarter of the game witnessed an equal amount of toughness and mistakes from both India and Great Britain. India conceded three penalty corners while the Brits happened to concede four penalty corners. However, both teams managed to avoid the damage in their circle with a brilliant PCD [penalty corner defence].

The second quarter of the game arrived with a big blow for the Indian camp just in the 17th minute of the game and the second minute of the second quarter. The men in blue, alongside the commentators, were left shocked when India’s number 1 first-rusher Amit Rohidas was booked by the referee with a red card.

However, it is still debatable if stick hitting British player was intentional by Amit Rohidas or if it happened in the flow of the moment. The ‘Red Card’ also ignited this debate among the commentators because the visuals and replay of the moment were telling a different story as Amit had not even his eyes on Great Britain’s player who was following him for a 'tackle'.

Fortunately, India got a chance to give a reply to the red card just after 5 minutes of this ‘unfortunate’ moment. Skipper Harmanpreet Singh once again took the frontline for his side and converted the ‘PC’ into the first goal for India in the 22nd minute of the game.

However, Great Britain took only five minutes to level the scoreline 1-1 with a brilliant field goal by the star midfielder Lee Morton in the 27th minute of the game. The scoreline didn’t see any change at the end of the second quarter as Great Britain levelled it at 1-1.

Here’s how things unfolded in Penalty Shoot-Outs

Then came the game of two crucial quarters when both teams gave a tough fight to each other without any goal. The Indian think tank was also left forehead-wrinkled when Sumit was booked by the referee with a green card just a few seconds before the end of the third quarter. Later in the fourth quarter, India successfully prevented any damage with 9-men strength in the first two minutes.

Eventually, the game ended at the scoreline of 1-1 without any leading goal from both teams, resulting in a penalty shoot-out.

The first two shots were successfully converted into the goals by India and Great Britain taking the scoreline to 2-2. But something ‘deciding’ was yet to happen and it was ‘PR Sreejesh pushing Conor Williamson’ away from scoring a goal in Britain’s third shot.

Furthermore, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay scored the third goal for India in the shoot-out, deceiving Ollie Payne to take India’s lead 3-2 after three shots each. The game was set to be decided in the fourth hit of the penalty shoot-out. The first smile for India came when PR Sreejesh saved Roger Phillip’s goal to keep the scoreline 3-2.

Finally, a goal was scored by Raj Kumar Pal in the fourth shot to give the ‘tears of joy’ to the country of 1.4 billion India defeated Great Britain for the second successive time in the Olympics Quarter-Finals.