Sloppy India escape with draw against South Korea
RAJGIR, Sept. 4 -- Unlike the last couple of years where India dominated hockey in the continent, it isn't going to be a walk in the park for the hosts this time around. Not with the way they are playing.
Porous defence, lack of coordination, indisciplined and wayward counterattacks, India continued their poor run at the Asia Cup, just about managing a 2-2 draw against defending champions South Korea in their first Super 4 match on Wednesday.
What looked like an anomaly when the Harmanpreet Singh-led squad lost seven successive matches in the European leg of the FIH Pro League in June, looks to be nothing less than very poor form against teams who couldn't even qualify for the Paris Olympics, let alone enter the top 10 in the world.
The contest was delayed by 53 minutes due to torrential rain which hit Rajgir after a day of extreme heat, bringing down the temperatures.
Hardik Singh (8th minute) got the hosts off to a wonderful start when he collected a pass from Sukhjeet Singh, who poached it from Lee Seung-woo in the midfield.
Hardik dodged past many Korean defenders and scored, much to the delight of the 5,000-odd fans who had turned up hoping for a big win for India.
Almost everything from thereon went downhill as India trailed for almost two-thirds of the contest. Korea had come prepared with a plan to counterattack. Those attacks did yield a penalty stroke as the TV umpire ruled that Jugraj Singh had pushed Oh Seyong. Yang Ji-hun (12th) scooped the ball to the top left of India goalkeeper Krishan Pathak, silencing the crowd.
Two minutes later, Korea stunned the Indian team when the umpire awarded a penalty corner (PC) after the ball struck Mandeep Singh's foot. Kim Hyeong-hang (14th) converted brilliantly, hammering the ball through the legs of first rusher Amit Rohidas to take the lead.
There was total silence as Craig Fulton's team started searching for an equaliser from the start of the third quarter. India pressed hard, but Korea were resolute in defence, bringing in all their players to not allow Indian attacks through....
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