India finished the Rourkela leg of this season's FIH Pro League season with four losses in four games, as they went down 4-2 to Argentina on Sunday evening, after another poor performance, that left plenty of questions for coach Craig Fulton and the players to answer.
Argentina got the first goal in the second quarter, after creating a number of chances in the first quarter. Tomas Domene opened the scoring from a penalty corner, beating Pawan Rajbhar in India's goal with easy. Tadeo Marcucci doubled the lead before half-time, before Lucio Mendez got another goal just after half-time.
Argentina made it 4-0 when Marcucci added a fourth goal, after poor defending from India on a penalty corner. India added a shade of respectability to the scoreline in the last ten minutes, as Aditya Lalage deflected a Hardik Singh shot into goal, and then Sanjay Rana scored from a penalty stroke after a foul by the Argentine goalkeeper on Karthi Selvam.
India now travel to Australia to play two games each against Australia and Spain in Hobart. India will have to be much better than they have been in Rourkela. India have barely even threatened to win a single game in this Rourkela leg of the Pro League. They conceded 19 goals, and scored just five. It's the worst possible way to start a huge year, that will culminate with the World Cup and the Asian Games.
You can relive the game, as it happened, here:
