Bangalore, Jul 16: Coach Michael Nobbs was left fuming after India went down to Great Britain 1-3 in the inaugural triangular invitational hockey tournament in Santander, Spain, on Sunday. This was the second sucessive defeat for the team which had gone down 3-4 to South Africa recently.

The match on Sunday was played in heavy wet weather following the rain and it gave the Indians a perfect opportunity to acclimitize with conditions that will be expected during the Olympics. India took a lead at the third minute with the help of Shivendra Singh who deflected Tushar Khandekar's move. The lead continued till the 17th minute when James Tindall drew level through a penalty corner. Ashley Jackson's goal in the 45th minute off a penalty stroke.

The Indians thereafter launched a counter-attack but Harry Martin sealed the match for the Olympic hsost in the 62nd minute after scoring from a rebound from goalkeeper and Indian skipper Bharat Chhetri, who had a mixed outing during the day.

Nobbs was annoyed by the fact that the Indians could not capitalise on several penalty corners. "We will video analyse to pick out the mistakes," he said. Nobbs also pointed out that the forwardline was not exactly finishing the task. Nobbs decided to play 16 players chosen for the Olympics for it was the final warm-up tournament before the mega event. The Indian team also suffered a blow when veteren defende Ignace Tirkey received an ankle injury early in the match. He would be out for a week and replaced by Kotahjit Singh from the reserves, Nobbs said.

OneIndia News