India hope to forget Asian Games disappointment, kick-off World Cup preparations on a high
Sundeep Misra
India lost their Asian Games semi-final to Malaysia, and it resulted in a series of knee-jerk reactions from Hockey India. AP
It would be two days short of 50 since that heart-breaking defeat to Malaysia in the semi-finals of the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. Big teams get beaten, lose close matches; upsets are, at times, the life-blood of a competition. Slaying a big team rejuvenates a tournament, but in that defeat for India, there was torment, an agony that set in motion — as it always happens in Indian hockey — a series of knee-jerk reactions that create an atmosphere nothing short of calamitous.