The deep defence, that conceded 10 penalty corners, let India down against the Netherlands who went on to win 6-1 in Monchengladbach on Tuesday night, according to Indian coach Vasudevan Baskaran.
Baskaran felt that the defenders committed far too many mistakes that led to the penalty corners.
Baskaran said: "In fact, the big difference between the teams was the penalty corner conversion. But otherwise, I thought our boys played extremely well today. Our big mistake was that we did not try to slow down the game and I felt that the forwards should have kept the ball for longer time rather than go on all out attack.
"Consequently, we left ourselves open to counter-attacks and the Dutch were quite quick in turn-arounds. Overall, it was rather disappointing that we conceded penalty corners so easily and this is something that we need to work on."
When asked about the two yellow cards, to Kanwalpreet Singh and Viren Rasquinha, Baskaran said: "Our players should be aware of the rules of the game. After all, this is the World Cup and not a domestic tournament. They should have been more careful rather than commit mistakes and take yellow cards."
He conceded that the defence of the penalty corners was also not up to the mark and that goalkeeper Adrian DSouza was a bit late in reacting during the first two penalty corners.
Baskaran's counterpart Roelant Oltmans said he was relieved that his team finally got going with penalty corner conversions.
"What we didn't do earlier in the tournament, we did today. I think, we are ready to take on any team. We played well today and controlled the match," he said.
Man-of-the-match Taeke Taekema, who scored five of the six Dutch goals from penalty corners, said he was happy at his success.
"It took some time for me to get used to the pitch here that was on the softer side and I was pushing too hard. But today, it all fell into place and its great to score five in one match," he said.
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