Despite one of their best performances under coach Harendra Singh, India lost 4-2 to the Netherlands in the FIH Women's Pro League at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Monday. Felice Albers scored twice for the Dutch, in addition to goals from Emma Reijnen and Fay van der Elst, while Udita Duhan scored a brace for India.
The Netherlands started the game positively, and had a couple of chances even before they took the lead in the seventh minute. van der Elst took a shot which was blocked by Jyoti Chhatri in the circle, but Reijnen reacted the quickest, to unleash a powerful reverse shot that whistled past Savita. India won the first penalty corner in the same minute but couldn't muster a chance on goal.
India were much improved in the second quarter and deservedly came back to level the game through Udita's strike off a penalty corner variation, which took a fortunate deflection and beat Anne Veenendaal in the Dutch goal.
In the third quarter, India piled the pressure on the Dutch, but the Olympic and world champions showed why they are the best team in the world. They took the lead off a penalty corner when India didn't react fast enough to Savita's save off Enderique Matla's shot, the rebound fell nicely to Albers, who tapped into an empty net for her first goal of the match. They doubled their lead soon after, following stunning dribbling from Joosje Burg down the right flank. She rushed across the baseline before a cut-back to van der Elst right in front of goal, to set her up for a straightforward finish.
India kept putting pressure on the Dutch, and won a series of penalty corners but couldn't take any of their chances until the 42nd minute, when Udita saw her shot go in after another fortunate deflection.
Any hopes of an Indian fightback in the fourth quarter were quickly snuffed out within a couple of minutes, as the Dutch extended their lead thanks to the best goal of the game. Albers dribbled right through the heart of the Indian defence, and then entered the circle before lashing a powerful reverse hit past Bichu Devi in the Indian goal.
You can relive all the action as it happened our live blog, below: