Bangkok: India stormed into the semifinals of the seventh women's Asia Cup hockey tournament after holding Malaysia to a 1-1 draw in their last Group A match at the Queen Sikirt Sports Centre here today.
Defender Binita Toppo scored the equaliser in the 27th
minute after Juliani Mohamad Din surprised India as early as
in the fourth minute of the match.
With two wins and as many draws, India finished their
group proceedings at the second spot and will take on
formidable South Korea -- Grup B toppers -- in the semifinals.
China topped Group A and will face Japan in the last four
stage.
Earlier, undefeated Korea thrashed hapless Chinese Taipei
15-0 to register their fourth successive win and top Group B
ahead of Japan.
Even though going into the match, they needed just a draw
to progress to the semifinals, India would be disappointed to
have split points with the Malaysians.
The draw denied India a relatively easy semifinal outing
against off-colour Japan as they needed an outright win to top
Group A.
Hitherto undefeated, India made a mess of their last
group match despite territorial domination. The Indians had no
clue as to how to break the crowded defence of the vigilant
Malaysians.
To add to their misery, Malaysian goalkeeper Farah Ayuni
Yahya proved to be a hard nut to crack for the Indian forwards
throughout the match.
That India dominated the game can be gauged from the fact
that they earned four penalty corners in each half, while
their rivals managed just one and utilised it to perfection to
put India on the backfoot.
Malaysian striker Din stole the show early into the match
with an immaculate penalty corner conversion in the fourth
minute much against the run of play.
Stung by the early goal. India went all out attacking and
their efforts bore fruit in the 27th minute when Binita found
the net with a carpet drive after Deepika Thakur did the spade
work from India's fourth penalty corner to go into the
breather tied 1-1.
The Indians could have won the match had strikers Jasjeet
Kaur and substitute Mukta Barla not missed a couple of sitters
in the second half.
Barla had the open goal in the 64th minute, but she shot
the ball outside the net from arm's length distance.
Although his wards made it to the semifinals, Indian
coach MK Kaushik was a disappointed man with the result and
blamed his forwards for not winning the match.
"We gave the advantage to our rivals. We certainly lost
the advantage, my forwards' positing was wrong. We know the
Malaysians will defend heavily, and go for occasional run
downs. They did this exactly and got the results. Their
shifting was perfect. We could have gone for rebounds which we
did not," Kaushik said after the match.
"They have to prepare themselves for the big matches and
it is an attitude issue," he said.
Captain Surinder Kaur too admitted that the team could
have won. "We should have won, but we did not."
Bureau Report