Doubts over SV Sunil's participation in hockey quarters

RIO DE JANERIO: Uncertainty hovered over Indian team's halfback SV Sunil's participation in the quarterfinals after he sustained an injury during its last men's hockey Pool B game against Canada at the Rio Olympics here today.
India were dealt a big blow when Sunil was stretchered off the pitch after he suffered an injury by crashing against the sign boards while pressing for an attack during the match against Canada.
Roelant Oltmans, who is the team's high performance director and head coach, could not give a definitive answer when asked about the extent of Sunil's injury.
"I don't know. It's too early to say. He needs to have a scan. He fell into the board and injured his writs," Dutchman Oltmans said.
Skipper PR Sreejesh though sounded optimistic.
"What I saw it seemed okay to me and he can play in the next match," Sreejesh, who also mans India's goal, said.
India squandered a one-goal advantage as they allowed Canada to stage a fightback with a late strike and earn a 2-2 draw.
Talking about the two yellow cards, Oltmans said: "The first one was for pushing with the stick on the back of the defender. I'm not sure about that and the other one was for elbowing... I will have to see the replays."
On the strategy to play without Sreejesh to bolster the forward, he said: "When we were in Spain we played last four minutes without the goalkeeper. The players are used to it. So far we have created a lot of opportunities in the matches we have played. Don't worry about penalty corners, every match we've been able to convert them."
Sreejesh said it is an usual strategy that the teams apply when they are trailing.
"It's no surprise. It's normal strategy. When we are trailing, we have to build pressure so as to negate the numerical disadvantage. We have to wait for them to make a mistake and score a goal. Last four minutes, we got five PCs," said Sreejesh.
On the missed penalty corners, Sreejesh said: "That's the difference between the win and loss. We should have converted in the dying moments. We still have one more match in the league round. We will concentrate on improving.
"We got opportunities. We could control the game even when we're down to nine players. But unfortunately we could not convert for a 2-2 draw."
Manpreet Singh, who stood in as the captain, said, "We did very well. We had two cards but despite that we did well. Overall, we put up a good show."
He insisted that the team would have to work on its penalty corner conversion, something that has been an issue so far.
"We could not succeed, it's hard luck. We will work on the video session. Our focus is now on Canada tomorrow. We are taking one match at a time," said Manpreet.