Japan faced first tough match today. After defeating Singapore and Sri Lanka with a commanding 15-0 and record breaking 21-0 scores, Japan faced South Korea in their last league match. It took 4-0 lead but in the second half the fighting Koreans scored thrice the last one coinciding with the hooter.

Indian team watched the match fully. Their coach M.K. Kaushik said this was the best match of the tournament. “They played at fast pace. The Koreans despite conceding four goals did not accept the defeat and kept on fighting. We will have a tough match against them in the semis”, he said.

AHF Cup runners up Sri Lanka, despite territorial domination, could not defeat Singapore, who are here as the AHF winners Hong Kong withdrew. The sole winning goals was obtained through a penalty corner by Chen Hui Ling in the 24th minute.

Journalists were shuttling between Pitch I and II today in the morning where China met Malaysia and India took on Kazakhstan respectively. As the goal difference was to decide the pool topper, these matches held simultaneously evoked lot of interest. When China led 1-0 and India 3-0 at half time, Indian supporters were in high spirit. But in the second half China scored six goals which meant India had to score a minimum of 8 goals without conceding any to pip China for the top slot in the pool. Indians did the same. India will now meet Korea in the semis whereas it will be between China and Japan in the other.

Malaysian coach C.R. Kumar was furious after the China-Malaysia match. We held them 1-1 till 40th minute. Then the Japanese umpire did us in. Most of her decisions defied logic. Even for minor incidents she started awarding penalty corners. In the end, we had to concede five goals in five minutes. It’s because of poor umpiring, our hardwork came to a naught. We suffered”, he said.

Off the 52 penalty corners awarded today on the last day of the pool matches, only 11 were converted. India which got 10 PCs in the first match, 11 in the next, got one more today (12) and made use three of them. Korea, Japan and China converted a brace each.

Japan’s goalkeeper Terazono Rie thwarted a penalty stroke. It was the second occasion in the Cup a stroke was not converted.

Japan contingent has a photographer and a video cameraman. These two travel with the team and never stop filming their contingent from the moment they enter the National stadium. That includes even warm up practice and the players’ resting on the sidelines. What will they do with these videos, running into hours?