BHUBANESWAR: Hopes dashed and a dream dusted, around 16,000-something fans and 11 men in blue walked out of the Kalinga Stadium carrying their wait of entering a World Cup semifinal to another painful four years. At the hands of Dutch, India's 'Cup of Hope' ended in a 1-2 defeat in the quarterfinals here on Thursday.
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India opened scoring in the 12th minute through Akashdeep Singh, who hit a rebound into the net, after Harmanpreet Singh's drag-flick rammed into Pirmin Blaak's pads and went straight to Akashdeep.
An opportunistic Netherlands caught India napping in the final few seconds of the first quarter, when they took a free-hit quickly and Thierry Brinkman deflected it to score the equaliser.
That followed two scoreless quarters, where the game's speed died a bit. However, India had a number of opportunities but spilled most of those with agonising regularity.
Netherlands finally got their noses ahead when Mink van der Weerden beat PR Sreejesh's defences to score the winner in the 50th minute.
In the other quarterfinal on Thursday, Belgium defeated Germany 2-1 to make their maiden entry into the World Cup semis.
There are no playoff matches in this format, and according to the FIH placement rules, India finished with sixth rank out of the 16 teams that participated.
Semifinals Lineup:
England vs Belgium
Australia vs Netherlands
Source : timesofindia[dot]indiatimes[dot]com
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