Sri Lanka Masters over-40 hockey team recorded its second win in Masters World Cup history after beating Italy by 4-3 in the ranking games at the sport’s prestigious veteran tournament held in Nottingham, England. Sri Lanka’s over-40 team, which lost all six round-robin matches mostly against the World’s top European veteran hockey teams by big margins in Group A, put its house in order to win the crucial match in the 14-nation tournament to win against Italy. The game was evenly poised, but Sri Lanka took the lead in the 11th minute when Sampath Subasinghe scored the first goal. Duncan Devendra scored the second goal via a penalty stroke in the 17th minute and made it 2-0. However, Italy fought back with Andrea Graziano scoring a field goal. Later, Sri Lanka defender Sanjay Edgar scored the third goal for Sri Lanka just before halftime to end the first half with a 3-1. Italy scored in the 51st minute when Malluzzo Michele scored a field goal. However, an excellent forward combination of Nadith Kudagama, Mahesh Matiwala, and Duncan Devendra ended with Skipper Devendra netting the ball to score his fourth goal in the tournament. Italy Skipper Alessandro Onano scored their third goal in the 67th minute of the game but Sri Lanka held strong to finish with a ranking of 13 in the 14-nation World Cup. It was Sri Lanka’s over-40 team’s second win in Masters World Cup history. They recorded their first win against Denmark by 2-1 in Spain when they played their debut World Cup. The men’s team’s main sponsor was the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau and the co-sponsor was Nippon Paint Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd. while SriLankan Airlines was the official airline partner. The team, which was in the toughest group, lost to Germany by 11-0 in the first game but fought back well against mighty France to minimise the margin of loss by 5-1 goals. However, it saw four disastrous defeats from then onwards, losing to host England by 12-0, Wales by 12-1, Ireland by 16-0, and South Africa by 15-0. All the teams in Group A in which Sri Lanka’s over-40 team was included contested against an equally ranked team in Group B. It partly explains Sri Lanka’s defeat in the round-robin matches, amidst the injuries of four players, while both the Coach and Team Manager were also forced to play due to visa rejections for at least three players. The team had only 16 players – 14 players excluding the Coach and Manager – instead of the usual 18.