K. ARUMUGAM

Savita’s Indian team caved into the South Korean precision in the first semifinal of the tenth Asia Cup in Muscat. The Korean’s led by ebullient forward Eunbi Cheon were struggling but were surprisingly given enough elbow room to manouvre and even got a gift-like brace of goals due to sloppy Indian goalkeeping. The defending champions India lost the semis with a fighting score of 2-3.

“The same girls used to score in similar situations during practice, but were not doing so today in the match situation”, said somewhat stunned coach Janneke Schopman.

Honestly speaking India could have wrapped up the match within ten minutes of the game. They were so dominant in ball possession, rotation and circle entry, but were uncharacteristically loathe inside the circle. Passes inside the circle were hasty, blind and that had made the work of Korean defence easy.

Neha, Sharmila  and Lalremsiami missed a sitter each in the spell. When ultimately Sharmila Devi struck one it was after carrying – the goal was given and then lost on Korean referral.

Gurjit Kaur, who took all the four penalty corners they earned in the sixty minutes, never looked dangerous. All her grounders were well blocked by the ever alert goalie Lee Jin Min. Gurjit’s last attempt in the fourth quarter was pathetic, pushing to the far off from the right post.

Of course, today’s match marked her 10th cap.

Over all, India was sluggish in the build ups and were hitting slow and wayward inside the circle. Indian defence cracked on every Korean attack. Udita in particular was poor in clearance and was not quick enough on her efforts.

The Koreans on the other hand were quick in clearances whenever they saw danger, breach to their citadel.

India actually took the lead two minutes before the half time bouncing on to the penalty corner rebound (Neha, 1-0). However, the Korean, fast and quick after lemon time returned a goal in the same coin with an indirect penalty corner conversion (31st min 1-1).

Korea and India at the Muscat Asia Cup, the Indian goal was disallowed after referral

Even as Indians were seen making their moves messy, two bad clearances saw the Koreans scoring twice in the space of three minutes. On any other day, Savita would have cleared those loose ball with a heavy kick but today when needed most all she could do was a very weak kick that gifted the Koreans a brace (3-1).

India did not recover from the shockers.

Lalremsiami made some amends midway through the last quarter but it was too little and too late in the day.

Like in the Dongae Asian Champions Trophy, Japan and Korea will play the final on Friday. India will engage awe looking China for bronze.