After the high of beating Russia on Tuesday, the Indian spikers lost in straight sets to the gritty Argentines 25-14 25-21 25-17 in the second match of the last-eight league in the junior world championships on Wednesday.

All through the game, Argentina had an answer to everything that the Indians threw at them. For every smash that Naveen Raja Jacob hit, centre Facundo Conte replied with at least a couple. Blocker Pablo Crer totally negated India’s other attacker Mandeep Singh.

The one noticeable point that separated the two teams was smashing and blocking errors.

Coach MH Kumaran, though, said that the reason for the loss wasn’t the net block but a mental block that his team have against Argentina. “We were not strong mentally today. We had played a practice match against them before the tournament and lost in a similar fashion. We did not play according to plan,” said the coach.

The Indian team had earlier lost to Argentina at the Youth World Championships in Mexico.

‘No Plan B’

Team skipper Mandeep felt that the team were mentally drained after the marathon match against Russia on Tuesday. He echoed the coach’s sentiment of Argentina being India’s jinx team. “We had no answer to Argentina today. Once they targetted Gurinder and me, we didn’t have a Plan B,” he said, adding that the focus of Thursday morning’s practice session will be an accurate first pass which was missing against Argentina.

Team Argentina, though, have hardly a headache. Attacker Conte was accurate with his spikes while blockers Crer, Uriarte and Bruno combining well. The South American side took the first set 25-14 but India bounced back in the second set with a much-improved blocking game. Naveen found his feet in the second set and won a few attacks. But Argentina did not lose focus and remained consistent with their attacking. They kept at it and a late surge won it for them, 25-21. The third set saw Argentina race to an early lead and they never looked back, making few mistakes on their way to winning the third and final set 25-17.

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