India's campaign ends

Bhubaneswar: India lost 4-5 to New Zealand in a sudden death shoot-out in their Crossover match to crash out of the FIH Odisha Hockey Men's World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium, here on Sunday.

India failed to capitalise on a 3-1 lead in the third quarter and allowed New Zealand to score twice to end the match 3-3 in regulation time. Lalit Upadhyay (17th min), Sukhjeet Singh (24th min) and Varun Kumar (40th min) scored for India in regulation time while Sam Lane (28th min), Kane Russell (43rd min) and Sean Findlay (49th min) scored for the Black Sticks.

With seasoned goalkeeper PR Sreejesh pulling off a couple of brilliant saves, India fought back to 3-3 in the shoot-out and had two chances in the sudden death as Shamsher Singh missed the final shootout effort to lose 4-5 in front of a jam-packed stadium.

New Zealand thus set up a quarterfinal clash with Belgium while India will now move to Rourkela for the playoff matches for the 9-16 spots.

Earlier, Spain limped into the quarterfinals after beating a fighting Malaysia 4-3 via sudden death shoot-out following a 2-2 draw in regulation time in their Crossover stage match at the Kalinga Stadium.

Spain fought back from a goal down and scored twice within a minute to take a 2-1 lead. However, Malaysia scored the equaliser (2-2) in the 48th minute and then survived waves of Spanish attacks and a barrage of penalty corners to take the match to the tie-break shoot-out.

They took an early lead in the shoot-out but eventually succumbed to the pressure in sudden death when Firhan Ashari failed his attempt, blazing over the goal a rebound off a block by the Spanish goalkeeper Mario Garin.

Spain won the match 4-3 in sudden death but as their players and chief coach Max Caldas erupted in joy, they had all the reasons to feel lucky to escape with victory as they had failed to make the most of their chances and ball possession. They had to thank goalkeeper Garin, who was brought in as a substitute just for the shoot-out and did his job superbly by pulling off a couple of good saves.

In the first shoot-out of the FIH Odisha Hockey Men's World Cup 2023 and Malaysia started it on a good note when Ashari beat Garin with an easy shot. Alvaro Iglesias's shot was saved by the Malaysian goalkeeper Othman Hafizuddin and after Faizal Saari and Marc Miralles converted their respective attempts, Malaysian skipper Marhan Jalil fluffed his attempt and Jordi Bonastre converted to make it 2-2.

Irfan Suhaimi Shahmie scored for Malaysia and then Xavier Gispert scored for Spain as the teams ended 3-3 in the shoot-out after Shello Silverius (MAS) hit the post and Marc Reyne's slap shot from the top of the circle was saved by Hafizuddin.