Indian coach Jose Brasa has come out in support of the Indian players, saying that despite their World Cup hopes getting over, the current players should be given a long run.

By Prateek Srivastava

"We should stick to this squad. The players are improving by the day and that is very encouraging. Making a lot of changes is not a way forward," Brasa said after the England match which India lost narrowly 3-2 to be out of the reckoning for the semifinals.

"We now need more international matches. The more we play, the more we will get better," he added.

The Spaniard also believes the Indian team was unlucky to come out empty-handed against the European champions on Saturday night. "I am happy with the way the team played. We played a lot better than we did against Spain in the last match. I think we were unlucky to not get a point," he said.

Brasa also conceded that if it had not been for a few mistakes they could have very well come out on top. "We made a few mistakes in the match and they cost us dear. Attacking from the left side in the first half also did not work for us. If we had played slightly better, we could have beaten England," he said.

"This was out best match since the Pakistan game," he added.

On being out of trophy contention he remarked, "I never said that we were going to win the Cup. We are on the learning curve. It is heartening that that the players have shown so much improvement over the last few days."

His counterpart English coach Jason Lee on the other hand was happy to make it to semis but said his team needed to work on its execution. "I am really happy to have made it to the semis. But at the same time I must admit that our execution was not up to the mark today.

"In the last 15 minutes or so we were absolutely out of order and that is something we have to shake off as quickly as possible," he said.

India play their last league match against South Africa on Monday while England will be facing Spain.