The maritime tradition that a captain goes down with the ship may be debatable. But there is absolutely no question that a captain should be in immense pain and regretfully rue what went wrong when his World No. 6 team goes down to the No. 12 side after taking a two-goal lead twice in a crucial World Cup encounter. Far from this, however, India captain Harmanpreet Singh, 27, offered no regret and didn’t seem remorseful at all while speaking to the media after the hosts lost 4-5 via shootout to New Zealand at the Kalinga Stadium on Sunday to exit the quadrennial showpiece event a lot earlier than expected.

Harmanpreet Singh said: “I don’t think it’s about pressure. I know all are talking about it [not scoring enough goals], but I’m trying. When you go out on the field, you don’t think you won’t score or that there is pressure. You go thinking you will score. So, there is no pressure, but we’ll try to find [out] what went wrong.” It’s shocking that such an experienced player is still looking for what went wrong when the No. 1 reason is staring you in your face.