BANGKOK: Captain Surinder Kaur scored the lone goal as India defeated defending champions Japan 1-0 in a practice match ahead of the seventh Women’s
Asia Cup hockey tournament on Wednesday.

India has been placed in Group A along with formidable China, Malaysia, Singapore and hosts Thailand in the tournament.

The Indian eves will open their Asia Cup campaign against a lowly Singapore at the Queen Sikrit University Sports Centre here on Friday and coach MK Kaushik has made his intentions clear when he said that he would like to win the match by a big margin.

“Since China is a strong contender, a good goal aggregate will help us to choose the semifinal rivals,” said Kaushik, who guided India to gold at the 2004 edition of the event.

“Since the finalists qualify for the 2010 World Cup, the semifinal line up is very important.”

Although India, who arrived here on Sunday, shocked Japan in the practice game today, the coach was in no mood to take the result seriously.

“This was a 40-minute match, second match for the Japanese after they played a short game with Malaysia. Neither side did not press. I don’t read much into the result,” Kaushik said.

Meanwhile, skipper Surinder, who will be representing India in the Asia Cup for the fourth time since 1999, said it would be a mistake to take Singapore lightly and they would be giving their best against the lowly opponents.

“We take the Singapore match seriously. We want to make a good beginning. We tried new penalty corner patterns in the Bhopal camp. We will try them out tomorrow. Hopefully, we will get success and this will go a long way in doing well in the tournament,” Kaur said.