At some point, when India's hockey players have caught their breath and gathered their thoughts, they will see the enormity of what they have done. A man down for almost three full quarters, they shook off the shock of a very rare red card, kept their heads, kept believing and kept playing to take the game to a shootout. Then PR Sreejesh took over to finish off an improbable, incredible win.
A red card in field hockey is a rarest of rare event. The sport is designed in a way so that the player doesn't get a red card at all. There's a green card, for a two-minute suspension. There's a yellow card for five-minute suspension and there's also a yellow card for 10-minute suspension. Only if there's a deliberate intention to hurt the player, a red card is shown.
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Amit Rohidas was shown a red in the 17th minute of India's quarterfinal match against Great Britain for raising his stick and hitting the face of William Calnan. It's a hugely debatable decision, for can one be sure whether it's a deliberate act or not? Or whether it is a red card offence or just a 10-minute suspension would've sufficed? But the umpires made the decision, red was shown, off went Rohidas -- India's key defender against an aggressive Great Britain.
And that's exactly what Indian players pulled off. A heroic defending act, led by PR Sreejesh. Craig Fulton underlined his philosophy as 'defend to win'. This was the match they actually defended the hell out of it to win it.
How India pulled off the impossible act
Strangely, after Rohidas was sent off, India became a slightly better team on the pitch for that quarter. Their offensive game improved and India took the lead via a penalty corner, a Harmanpreet Singh rocket. But it took only five minutes for Britain to respond, and Lee Morton made it 1-1. India closed out the quarter without much damage but there was still 30 more minutes to go.
That's a long time, especially because Britain have the players to go all-out attacking and score a bunch. In fact, in their last four matches, Britain had scored three, three, four and four goals against India. And they have an uncanny ability to up the ante in second halves, especially the final quarter. They have done it this Olympics against the Dutch as well as against the Germans, which they lost but not before making it really tough for the world champions.
India knew what was in store, but they still had to play out the entire match and make no mistake. They needed a perfect defensive performance. In hockey terms, they needed a proper block. Sticks almost on the ground. Even the tiniest of deflections would've ended their campaign.
In the previous match against Australia, the whole team stepped up to make it an impressive attacking performance. Today, the whole team stepped up to make it a perfect defensive outing.
Manpreet, the experienced midfielder in the ranks, stepped into the defence to become a centre back. Sumit was next to him on the right and Harmanpreet and Jarmanpreet Singh on the other side. Behind him was Sreejesh. Naturally, Britain enjoyed more possession, but they couldn't breach this defence. Attack after attack, but the Indians didn't make a single mistake. The traps were spot on, the tackles were perfect and the saves by Sreejesh were brilliant. There was a penalty corner in the second-half where Sreejesh was not given any cover by the rushers but even then, he was not beaten. He stood tall and calmly pushed the ball away with his right leg.
Sumit was the star outfielder, meanwhile. Britain tried to target him, attacking his side of the pitch, thinking they would break him but in almost all of those attacks, Sumit came out top. It was a team effort, though: the attackers fell back and maintained their discipline off the ball. Hardik Singh, Abhishek, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Upadhyay... all of them played their part in defence. And any chance they got on the ball, they ensured Britain don't get hold of it easily.
Sixty minutes were done, and Hardik let out a huge roar. This was already the best defensive performance of the team in the last decade or two. But the job was not done.
Sreejesh, playing his last tournament of his career, still had a job to do. He couldn't stop the first two shots, despite getting the angles right. After Conor Williamson missed, Phil Roper had to score. This time Sreejesh covered the angle, was already down and denied Roper's shot with his hand. Rajkumar Pal converted his chance and all the players, and the staff ran towards Sreejesh. It could've been the final match of his career, but Sreejesh will play two more and a chance to win his second Olympic medal.