By Our Special Correspondent
India fought back from a two-goal deficit to take a 3-2 lead five minutes before the end of the match, keeping Malaysia defending champions 3-3 in the Super 4 pool game of the Asia Cup Hockey Tournament. Sunday here.
The Indian players, who played poorly in the first half, played entirely on defense and failed to score a single shot on the Malaysian goal. Malaysia took advantage of the Indians' passive play and scored once in the first two quarters through penalty corner expert Razi Rahim to take a 2-0 lead.
The young Indian team bounced back strongly in the second half, launching some excellent attacks, controlling the midfield and defending well with Vishnukant Singh (31st min), SV Sunil (52nd) and Neelam Sanjeev Xess (54th min) scoring 3 goals in the minute. -2 lead. Razi Rahim completed the hat-trick by converting another penalty corner 3-3 five minutes before the end of the match.
With this draw, India won by one point and drew with Korea by four points with one draw. Malaysia is third with two points from two draws, while Japan is bottom of the Super 4 table with two defeats.
India struggled after trailing 2-0 in the first half when not a single shot failed at the Malaysian goal, but could not get a single penalty corner despite having a slightly better ball.
Defenders conceded three easy penalty corners and Malaysian drag-flickr Rahim Razi took advantage of both of them to take his team forward. The Malaysians scored once in both quarters - Rahim scored in the same manner with a low flick to the right of goalkeeper Suraj Karkera.
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