India crash to shock loss to Malaysia

IPOH (MALAYSIA): A listless India slumped to a heart-breaking 0-1 defeat to hosts Malaysia in their last league match as they failed to reach the final of Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament for the second consecutive year here today.Needing to win by a twogoal margin to make the final after Great Britain had edged past New Zealand 3-2 earlier in the day, India failed to produce a cohesive game and suffered their second loss of the tournament.

Finishing with seven points from five matches, India will on Saturday play New Zealand in the play-off for the bronze medal, while the title encounter will be between defending champions Australia and Great Britain.

An Indian victory by two goals would have pushed the British team to the bronze medal game, but Malaysia turned the tables on India who gave a disjointed exhibition of hockey.

Malaysia opened the scoring in the 50th minute with a penalty corner conversion through Shahril Saabah’s drag-flick to the right of the goalkeeper.

Video referrals seemed to be the flavour of the game as it was taken several times in penalty corner actions. India were successful with video referral once but then lost one too. They showed more purpose in the second half, but their attack was not cohesive and the strikers turned out to be error-prone after reaching the top of the circle.

Going all out in search of goals, India made three forays into the rival circle in the last four minutes and even earned two penalty corners, but the Malaysians stoutly defended their citadel.