Amstelveen (Holland), Aug 21: Conceding that the players lacked "spark and passion", Indian hockey coach Rajinder Singh today said the entire team should take the blame for India's debacle in the Champions Trophy hockey tournament here.
"I am at a loss really, because we started off so well against Holland in our first match. We led 3-0 until the 64th minute, and suddenly, everything fell apart. Perhaps, the boys are still to recover from that defeat, and we went on to lose two other matches," he told here today.
"There is no spark in the team. The passion is missing and I am not happy with their recovery. Perhaps, the fact that several key players were ill at the camp in Lucknow and have not recovered fully, might have affected our performance too."
India, pre-tournament favourites, have lost three of their four matches so far ruling themselves out of contention for top honours.
"We lost the matches due to our own mistakes and we are all responsible for our poor performance so far."

Rajinder Singh felt that the players have lost focus, considering the number of scoring chances they messed up in each of the four matches so far.

"We had played extremely well in Australia and Hamburg recently, and frankly, it is difficult to explain the sudden loss of form of our players," he said.
Bureau Report