AMSTELVEEN, Aug 23: Pakistan hockey coach blamed his players for individual play in the second half and said they also failed to follow his instructions which led to their defeat against India in the most crucial match of the Champions Trophy hockey on Friday.

“It was a disappointing show by our players in the second half plus they failed to follow what I told them and played the second session emotionally which led to defeat in an important tie,” Tahir Zaman said during the post match comments.

He blamed both the forwards and defence for the defeat and said individual play spoiled a brilliant first half performance.

“They were emotionally charged in the second half and that disturbed our game plan and we failed to control it,” he added.

Tahir said a victory was badly needed to remain in contention but defeat by India has hampered their chances and now they would be looking for classification position.

“I am not happy with the performance and it was very difficult for me to control the emotions of the players in the field which contributed to our bad defeat,” he said.

The Pakistan coach said custodian Ahmad Alam was off-colour and did not rise to the occasion besides forwards and defenders also disappointed with their selfish individual play.

“We were going very well in the tournament and now we are in a difficult situation and our dream for a gold has been lost,” he said.

Indian coach Rajinder Singh gave full marks to his side for making a memorable come back and said indeed it was one of the best performances of India against Pakistan.

“We won by a huge margin and the victory has given us some respect after our successive defeats in the tournament,” he said.

“We were bad in the first half and the second half belonged to us and we controlled the game and beat our opponents with a clear margin,” he declared.—APP