An impeccably-taken penalty corner by V. Raghunath and an exotic goal by Birendra Lakra gave India a 2-0 win over Chinas and a place in the semifinals from Pool B in the men’s hockey competition on Saturday.
Even after four matches, the attack suffered from want of cohesion. The forwards struggled to fashion a combined attack. The midfield combination of Gurbaj and Manpreet Singh managed to keep the Chinese attackers at bay, but they were threatening to break this bastion any moment.
For the first two quarters, it was China that looked sharper. The Indians were unable to cash in on any of the individual sallies that Dharamvir and Sunil were able to come up with.
Smart save
Even in the third quarter, the Chinese pressured the Indian defenders into errors. A fierce reverse shot by Sun Long was smartly stopped by goalkeeper Sreejesh, who followed it up with some brilliant saves off penalty corners.
Until Raghunath came up with the penalty-corner strike midway in the third quarter, there was very little to commend about India’s performance. The Indians raised their game after the goal and Lakra came up with a fine effort to enhance the lead.
He initiated the move in tandem with Akashdeep and beat the usually alert Chinese ’keeper Xu Rui with a perfect scoop.
Chief coach Terry Walsh admitted that there were weaknesses that needed to be corrected before the team faces South Korea in the semifinal.
The other semifinal will be between Malaysia and Pakistan.
Earlier, Malaysia put up a splendid display to down Japan by four goals to one. Muhammad Razie played a stellar role for the winner, netting two penalty corner goals.
The results: Men: Pool B: Pakistan 8 (Muhammad Imran 2, Dilber Muhammad, Muhammad Irfran 2, Abdul Haseem Khan 2, Shakeel Abbasi) bt Oman 0; India 2 (V. Raghunath, Birendra Lakra) bt China 0.
Pool A: Malaysia 4 (Firhan Muhammad, Muhammad Razie 2, Tajuddin) bt Japan 1 (Toshiro Tachbana); Korea 7 (Kim Sengkyu, Moonkeon Kang, Oh Daekeun, You Hyosik, Jang Jonghyun 2, Nam Hyunwoo) bt Bangladesh 0.
Semifinal line-up: Korea v India; Pakistan v Malaysia.
POINTS TABLE (MEN)
Pool A: Korea: 4-4-0-0-25-1-12; Malaysia 4-3-0-1-18-6-9; Japan 4-2-0-2-22-8-6; Bangladesh 4-1-0-3-3-21-3; Singapore 4-0-0-4-3-35-0.
Pool B: Pakistan 4-4-0-0-26-1-12; India 4-3-0-1-18-2-9; China 4-2-0-2-11-4-6; Oman 4-1-0-3-3-21-3; Sri Lanka 4-0-0-4-1-31-0
(read as played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points)
