India finish eighth at the hockey World Cup after a 4-3 shootout in Wavre

India left the FIH Men's Hockey World Cup in eighth place after Belgium won a 4-3 shootout at the Belfius Hockey Arena in Wavre on Friday. Regulation time finished 3-3. Captain Harmanpreet Singh dragged a penalty corner with 26 seconds on the clock to force the shootout. World No. 2 Belgium, the co-host, took seventh.

Abhishek Nain scored first, at six minutes according to Olympics.com, or at five minutes in The Hindu's match report. Roman Duvekot and Hugo Labouchere answered in the 22nd and 23rd minutes. Harmanpreet levelled from a drag-flick in the 31st. Nicolas de Kerpel put Belgium ahead again in the 47th minute after Manpreet Singh had been hit in the face by a close-range Labouchere shot and helped off, bleeding. The home crowd clapped him away. India then won the late corner. Harmanpreet beat Vincent Vanasch. The arena went to a shootout.

In the shootout Shilanand Lakra, Dilpreet Singh and Abhishek scored for India. Harmanpreet and Sukhjeet Singh did not. Tom Boon, Arthur de Sloover, Alexander Hendrickx and Duvekot scored for Belgium. Victor Fourbert missed. The 4-3 count sent India home one place below the side they had just matched for 60 minutes.

Harmanpreet finished the tournament on eight goals, level with Argentina's Tomás Domene with a day of matches still to play. That is the number a reader who already saw the classification result still needs. India came to Belgium chasing a first World Cup podium in 51 years. Eighth is the same neighbourhood the side has occupied in recent cycles when the last quarter slips. The late corner showed the drag-flick is intact. The two missed shootout attempts showed the same player cannot carry both the equaliser and the lottery.

Manpreet's injury is the other fact that will travel home. He is the midfielder who has been on the pitch for more than a decade of World Cups and Olympics. A ball in the face at close range, in a seventh-eighth match, is the kind of detail that tells you the contest was not a formality. Belgium still found de Kerpel in the next passage. Classification games often die after an injury stoppage. This one did not, which is why the shootout felt earned rather than staged.

The venue matters. Wavre, not the older Antwerp halls, hosted a World Cup crowd that knew the Belgian names. Cold wind, a full stand, and a co-host that sits second in the world rankings are a poor place to defend a one-goal lead or to chase one. India led early, fell behind twice, and still reached the last 26 seconds with a corner. That sequence is why eighth will sting more than a group-stage exit.

Hockey India will now turn to the next window on the calendar. The scoring chart gives Harmanpreet a personal marker. The team result does not. Belgium's shootout takers converted four from five. India's takers converted three from five. Two misses separate seventh from eighth. The 51-year podium wait continues by that margin.

Match reports differ on one Belgian scorer in regulation. Olympics.com listed Arthur De Sloover at 47 minutes. The Indian Express and The Hindu listed de Kerpel as the third Belgian goal after Manpreet went off. The shootout lists are aligned across PTI and Mathrubhumi. The 3-3 score, the 26-second corner, the eight-goal tally and the eighth-place finish are not in dispute. Those are the facts that belong in the record for a side that came to Belgium with a different number in mind.