New Delhi: India finished a disappointing 10th in the Hero Junior Men's Hockey World Cup after losing to arch-rivals Pakistan in the penalty shoot-out and chief coach Gregg Clark said it was the home team's "worst performance" in the 16-team quadrennial event.
Pakistan finished ninth after beating India 4-2 in the one-on-one penalty shoot-out after both the teams were locked at 1-1 at the regulation time at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium here on Saturday.
Pakistan stunned the large home spectators in the seventh minute with a field goal from Rizwan Ali before Gurjinder Singh drew parity for India just four minutes from the hooter by converting the team's second penalty corner.
"It was really a disappointing performance from the boys today. It is possibly our worst performance in the World Cup," a fuming Clark told reporters after the 9th-10th place classification match.
"We were not able to dribble the ball. Our defence, circle penetration and trapping was weak. We slipped on the quality of game execution and our strategy was not good either," he said.
He congratulated Pakistan and said India buckled under pressure in the home tournament.
"The team did not do justice to the game. Team was under pressure and did not handle it properly. There was lot of gap in the performance. Well done Pakistan. We couldn't handle the pressure throughout the tournament," Clark said.
India captain Manpreet Singh was of the view that conceding early goals throughout the event cost them dearly.
"We missed a lot of chances. We were also guilty of conceding goals in the first 10 minutes in most of the matches. We need to work on these areas," he said.
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