Amritsar (Punjab) [India], August 5 : The atmosphere of celebration was prevalent in the household of hockey player Gurjant Singh after India stormed into the semi-final at the Paris Olympics.
It was a victory to remember for ages after the Indian men's hockey team defeated Great Britain by 4-2 in the shoot-off to punch their tickets for the final four, despite playing with one player less for most of the match.
In Gurjant's home sweets were distributed to celebrate the success of India. His father Baldev Singh expressed his delight and told ANI, "We are very happy. Our team played all the matches very well. By God's grace, we won today even though we played the whole match with just 10 players. People are calling me constantly and sending their greetings. We hope they win the semifinals and then also win the gold medal."
Gurjant Singh's mother Sukhjinder Kaur added, "We are receiving a lot of calls from all relatives. All of them are very happy. I spoke to him around two days ago. We are very hopeful and we are also praying for a gold medal. The match was very tough but they played very well."
For India, captain Harmanpreet Singh (22') netted a goal, while Lee Morton (27') was on the scoresheet for Great Britain as the match ended with the score tied at 1-1 in the regular time. The game went into the shootout, where India converted all their chances and denied their opponents twice to win the match 1-1 (4-2 SO) and make it to the semi-finals.
India's win became more memorable after they overcame a setback to keep the hopes of a medal alive. Amit Rohidas was shown a red card in the second quarter for lifting his stick to the face of Will Calnan, forcing India to play with 10 men for the remainder of the match.
Despite going down to 10 men, India showed resilience with goalkeeper PR Sreejesh emerging as the wall in front of the goalpost that Great Britain had no answers to.
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