New Delhi, March 9 - India's coach Jose Brasa questioned the way onfield umpires Ged Curran and Roel van Eert asked for a video referral, disallowing his team's third goal against South Africa in the Hockey World Cup here Monday.

With the scoreline 2-2, Sarvanjit Singh put the ball home from a combined move in the 45th minute, but the South Africans protested that the ball had clipped the arm of defender Vikram Pillay in the Indian D before the move started. The case was referred to the video umpire, who not only turned down India's goal but also gave a penalty corner in favour of the South Africans.

"The rule is simple. If you want a video referral then you have to do it immediately and not after the ball had moved to the other half and the opponent had scored a goal. There is no doubt that it was a handball from Vikram, but it was also a dangerous play on part of the South African player as the ball had jumped till the shoulder height of Vikram. The video referral happened after a long time," said the Spaniard, after his team drew 3-3 with South Africa.

Brasa, however, said he was happy with the system of video referral provided there is some consistency.

"I have no grudge against the officials. I am in favour of this system. But we should have got a free hit instead of a penalty corner awarded to the South Africans because it was a dangerous play on their part," he said.

Brasa was also unhappy at the ground not being watered properly.

"The tournament director was not in the favour of watering the turf. There is no such rule that says that the turf cannot be watered before the match. We had some problems in trapping the ball in the first two short-corners and that was because the turf was not watered properly," he said.

The coach went on to add that he was happy with the performance of his boys, who he says will hopefully put up a better fight in their classification match for the seventh-eighth place.

"I am very happy with the performance of the boys. We came back well despite being down. One should not forget that today we scored four goals." (IANS)