Bungling India hit out of Gold race

A profligate Indian men's hockey team squandered eight of the nine penalty corners to suffer a 2-3 defeat at hands of lower-ranked New Zealand in the semifinals of the Commonwealth Games, here on Friday.

Not only the poor conversion but defensive lapses too played a huge rule in India's defeat, which means the silver medallists from the last two editions will now fight with England in the bronze medal match on Saturday.

Hugo Inglis, Stephen Jenness and Marcus Child scored for New Zealand in the first three quarters. Harmanpreet Singh scored both the goals for India, converting a penalty stroke before finding the net on the eighth penalty corner.

"The story of the tournament is that we have had enough penalty corners. We created enough chances but we didn't score off those. If you see today, we were in the circle of opponent for 32 times and they countered 14 times. They scored 3 but we only scored 2. The game is about scoring the goals and we don't do that enough," a disappointed coach Sjoerd Marijne said after the match.

In another semifinal match, Australia beat England 2-1 to set up a summit clash against  New Zealand on Saturday.