S. Thyagarajan

Bangkok: The focus at the seventh Asia Cup hockey championship on Wednesday was on identifying the semifinal line-up.

India ended up second in Pool A after it was held 1-1 by a fighting Malaysia to finish the league one point ahead of the latter.

India faces Korea, while China takes on Japan, in the semifinals on Friday.

A draw was sufficient for India, but a win could have given it a top place in the pool.

The team, however, made a mess of many things to complicate things.

Stunned by a third-minute goal by the Malaysians, whose approach work contained more fervour and fluency, the Indians enmeshed themselves in a rash of errors and just about managed to level the score from a penalty corner converted by Binita Toppo close to the end of the first half.

The early goal by Juliani Din in a penalty corner sequence rattled the Indians. True, they ventured to force the pace but, in the process, sacrificed the harmony needed to break the rival defence, controlled exceedingly well by the pivot, Nadia Abdul Rehman.

On the flank, Othman caused a lot of problems for the Indians, and goalkeeper Farah Yahya was a picture of confidence in some of her saves.

Solo efforts

India’s attack tended to be individualistic, even though stars Mamta Kharab and Saba Anjum worked hard to create moves. But the principal strikers, Surinder Kaur and Jasjeet Handa, fumbled repeatedly.

The only solace was the neat runs by Dipika Thakur, often causing a flutter in the rival ranks.

As always, Asantha Lakra was consistent throughout, spraying passes to generate the moves. But quite a few went awry owing to the lack of cohesion in the front line.

Needless to say, a handful of chances were frittered away till the final minutes. India had eight penalty corners but succeeded in sending in only one, which saved the team from an embarrassing defeat.

China had to beat Thailand by a dozen goals to make India sweat for a goal difference win against Malaysia.

But the local team, supported by vociferous home fans, managed to restrict the mighty Chinese to nine goals, thanks to the good goal-keeping by Jesadaporn Tongsung, who made a few splendid saves in penalty corners.

In Pool B, Korea emerged leader with a whopping tally of 59 goals and a difference of 57 after walloping Chinese Taipei 15-0.

This put Japan, the defending champion, in a hard spot forcing it to win against Hong Kong by a margin of no less than 21 goals to top the pool.

However, Japan managed only a 6-0 victory — for a goal difference of 43 — leaving the top berth to the former champion.

Both finished their pool matches with 13 points.

The results: Pool A: China 9 (Ma Yibo 4, Li Hong Xia, Song Ling 2, Fu Rong, Zhao Diao) bt Thailand 0; India 1 (Binita Toppo) drew with Malaysia 1 (Juliani Mohammad Din).

Pool B: Kazakhstan 4 (Gulnari Mangalieva 4) bt Sri Lanka 0; Korea 15 (Hye Lyong Han 3, Soo Kyung Lee 3, Mihyun Park 2, Eun Sil Kim, Young Ran Kim, Jong Eun Kim 2, Seul Ki Cheon, Dae Rae Kim, Sehui Tak) bt Chinese Taipei 0; Japan 6 (Ai Murakami, Keiko Miura 3, Miyuki Nakagawa) bt Hong Kong 0.

Pool positions (read as p layed, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points): Pool A: China 4-3-1-0-27-1-10; India 4-2-2-0-30-2-8; Malaysia 4-2-1-1-8-5-7; Singapore 3-1-0-2-1-30-3; Thailand 4-0-0-4-0-28-0.

Pool B: Korea 5-4-1-0-59-2-13; Japan 5-4-1-0-45-2-13; Kazakhstan 5-3-0-2-13-29-9; Chinese Taipei 5-1-1-3-7-28-4; Hong Kong 5-1-1-3-5-20-4; Sri Lanka 5-0-0-5-1-49-0.