Grit that broke brits!

While skipper Harmanpreet Singh and retiring goalkeeper PR Sreejesh have been heralded in the wake of Indian hockeyrsquos second consecutive Olympic bronze medal at the Paris Games one manrsquos heroic efforts have gone under the radarMidfielder Manpreet Singh 32 who led India to the bronze medal at 2020 Tokyo Olympics played a stellar role in ensuring the menrsquos team secured backtoback Olympic medals for the first time in 52 yearsAlso ReadAnd thatrsquos a wrap in ParisIndia captain Harmanpreet Singh left with Manpreet PicsGetty ImagesUnprecedented challengeTeam India were in the red quite literally when deep defender Amit Rohidas was given the marching orders in the 17th minute of the Paris Olympics quarterfinal against Great Britain It was Manpreet who took Rohidasrsquos place and formed the teamrsquos last line of defence along with Sreejesh as Team India hung on for a marathon 47 minutesmdashan act unheard of in modern hockey mdashto take the match into the shootout where India prevailed 42 Manpreet admits it was unprecedented ldquoDuring practice we sometimes play with a man short in match simulation where one of our players gets a green card twominute suspension or a yellow card minimum fiveminute suspension But thatrsquos for a brief period To play for 47 minutes with a man short is almost impossible in todayrsquos highly competitive hockey environment But we somehow pulled it off purely on our grit and determinationrdquo Manpreet tells midday from his home in Mithapur Punjab as he juggles a series of felicitation functions along with his teammates ldquoFirstly Amit is a very nice guy never aggressive That foul raised stick that struck British forward Will Calnan on his face was totally unintentional But when we saw that Calnan was playacting by holding his face and wriggling on the ground to ensure the referee gave Amit the red card it angered us as a team We felt cheated and we decided that come what may we wonrsquot let these guys win nowrdquo added Manpreet who time and again made brilliant interceptions in front of Sreejesh frustrating Great Britainrsquos forwardsPartnership with SreejeshldquoIrsquove been playing with Sreejesh for 14 years so we know each otherrsquos game too well We were ready to defend with our lives I told Sree to keep shouting out his instructions to me along with his trademark cuss words so as to pump me up even more He did exactly that and together we held on till the final whistle In fact after the shootout British forward Sam Ward came up to me and said lsquoyou guys were brilliant today make sure you go on and win a medalrsquo rdquo revealed ManpreetIndia went on to lose the semifinal 23 to Germany but beat Spain 21 in the bronze medal matchSreejeshrsquos retirement now leaves Manpreet as the most experienced player in the Indian hockey team with 378 international caps to his name And the veteran midfield marshal has some invaluable words of advice for Indian hockey going forward ldquoWe need to score more field goals Penalty corners have been our strength with Harmanpreet being a drag flick specialist but field goals is something we have thrived on over the years In Paris we didnrsquot score too many field goals thoughrdquo concluded ManpreetIndian hockey at Paris OlympicsGoals scored 15Goals conceded 12Penalty corner goals 9Goals off penalty strokes 3Total field goals 3