FIH Pro League: Indian men’s hockey team outclassed by Belgium’s tiki-taka hockey, lose 1-4 | Hockey News
Often playing the role of a player-coach on the field, PR Sreejesh flailed his arms and, from underneath his helmet, yelled at his teammates to let them know how exactly he was feeling about their performance. The microphones couldn’t exactly capture his tirade. But the goalkeeper’s body language suggested he must not have had pleasant things to say. India’s Pro League match against Belgium was only 14 minutes old when that happened. But if Sreejesh was trying to wake up the rest of the team, his hollering didn’t have the desired effect. India went on to lose 4-1. The scoreline, however, wasn’t the worst thing about the feeble submission to Belgium on Thursday night. The result in matches like these in the build-up to the Olympics always come with an asterisk – although for how long India’s under-performance can be seen as an ‘experiment’ or ‘holding the cards close to their chest’ can be debated. The worrying bits, from India’s point of view, would be the collapse in the face of Belgium’s subjugation and the …