Indian coach Harendra Singh blamed an "indisciplined" deep defence for his team's 2-4 loss against Australia in a league match of the Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament on Tuesday.
"We played well in the first 25 minutes, but thereafter, our defence simply gave in. They did not follow instructions, especially in the second-half," Harendra said after the match which saw India blew away a 2-0 lead to crash to their third defeat in four matches in the seven-nation meet.
He also said that his players failed to capitalise on the lead given by captain Dhanraj Pillay's double strike in the first 20 minutes of the match.
"It is not as if we have lost three matches badly. On each occasion, it has been a neck-and-neck contest, but I will have to shoulder much of the blame for our deep defence giving way at crucial moments," Harendra said.
"I thought our forward line played pretty well early on, but then the pressure was on us when we gave a lot of space to the Australians in the midfield. It helped them to make many moves."
Regarding the substitution of goalkeeper Kamaldeep Singh with Adrian D'Souza midway through the second-half, Harendra said "As I had mentioned earlier, I want to try out all my 18 players. Now that we are out of the tournament, there is nothing to lose and this is the time to give opportunities to all my players."
Skipper Dhanraj Pillay, nursing a knee injury that he suffered while scoring the second goal, said he was happy to have got back to playing as a centre-forward.
"Yes, it has been quite some time since I got to score goals. These days, my role has changed to that of a schemer since we have some very good forwards in Gagan Ajit Singh, Prabhjot Singh and Deepak Thakur," the veteran player said.
"But today, I requested the coach to allow me to play at centre-forward since I have always played well against the Australians. It clicked, but then, I would have been happier had we won the match," said the 36-year old striker.
Australian assistant coach Colin Batch said he was relieved at having won the game.
"We lapsed in concentration for a brief in the first half and Dhanraj scored two good goals. But thereafter, we regrouped to win the game."
He said nothing much should be read in Australia's performance in this tournament.
"We have come here without a few key players who are injured. But they will be back soon and our main target is of course the Olympics.
"What you see here now is not a finished product. We have some eight months left for the Olympics and I am sure, we will be a far better side at Athens," he said.
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