Olympics Hockey: Indian women squander chances, lose to Britain

Tokyo: India's women's hockey team lost 1-4 against defending champions Great Britain, making no use of umpteen chances they had in the Olympic game on Wednesday. India's third consecutive defeat in the preliminary stage could shrink their chances to qualify for the quarterfinals while Great Britain registered their second successive win in Pool A.

While India squandered many opportunities throughout the game, Britain used theirs. The former was awarded eight penalty corners but was able to finish just one successfully. But with penalties, Great Britain also hadn't made much.

Great Britain was in an aggressive mode and scored in the second minute, catching the Indian defence off guard. Though, India slowly started falling into place and tried to penetrate Britain's defence multiple times but couldn't successfully finish it. India wasted back to back penalty corners in the 12th minute and gave too much space in their half for opponents.

In the second quarter, in the 23rd minute, Sharmila scored India's only goal.

In the third quarter of the game, India enjoyed possession but again wasted three penalty corners. After Britain's third goal, they won dominance in possession in the fourth quarter and scored once more.

Great Britain had scored in 2nd, 19th,41st and 57th minutes.

In the last two games, the Indian team had wasted their chances, and they went on with the trend this too at Oi Hockey Stadium. India was supposed to win at least one point from this game, but now the team is under more pressure of winning the next two games so that they could have a chance to qualify for the knockout stage.

Earlier, India had lost to the Netherlands for 1-5 and Germany for 0-2. The team is to play against Ireland on Friday.