The Indian players need to go back to the boardroom to iron out grey areas before their second-round matches.

India outplayed arch rivals Pakistan 5-3 in their last Pool D match of the FIH World Cup at Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen, Netherlands on Wednesday to ensure a smooth passage to the next round.

India with six points from two wins and one loss is sitting at the second place in Pool D. England maintained a clean slate in the pool matches and are leading the group with nine points.

Pakistan and Wales have one point each and are out of the World Cup contention. Both the teams will compete for the classification matches.

Under the new tournament format, the top two teams in each pool advance to the second round and stay in the race for the prestigious World Cup trophy The bottom two teams enter the Classification Stage for the lower positions in the competition.

The competition in the second round will be more competitive and even a micro error can cost the teams dearly. In the Pool matches, the Indian players were at times error prone and should go back to the boardroom to iron out grey areas before their second-round matches.

The Indian men’s team last won the prestigious World Cup in 1975.

Pool D: England 9, India 6, Pakistan 1, Wales 1.

EOM