(Photo: © FIH / Stanislas Brochier)

The men’s competition in the pool matches reached the end on Sunday with the qualifiers determined for the semi-finals to come off on Tuesday.

By Mr S Thyagarajan

While India and Pakistan made the grade from Pool B, Korea and Malaysia entered the semi finals from Pool A.

India, which missed the podium for the first time since 1958 when hockey came on board of the Asian Games in Tokyo, made the grade this time after a 4-2 victory over Japan to maintain an unbeaten record in four matches. India finished on top of the pool with 12 points.

After conceding an early goal to Japan, India recovered through an equalizer by Rajpal Singh and profited from the two penalty corner goals by Sandeep Singh, who raised his individual tally to 11 so far in the event.

Pakistan made short work of Bangladesh with a comfortable 6-1 victory while South Korea, the defending champion, swamped Singapore by 12 goals to one.

Needing only a draw to reach the penultimate round after eight years, Malaysia was engaged in a fierce battle with the home team China. Muhammad Amin slotted in a perfect penalty corner for the lead, but China produced a stunner of a goal in a penalty corner sequence from Liu Yixian.

Midway through Faisal Saari darted in and finished with a well angled shot giving the Chinese goal-keeper no chance whatsoever. Shortly after the break, Na Yubo smashed in the leveler from a cross by Song Yi. Even before the celebrations were over, Malaysia marched ahead with a beautiful deflection by Hanifi from a penalty corner push by Amin and Aslan Misron capped the day with a splendid goal that sent China out of the medal reckoning. China won the silver at Doha.


The results:

Men: Pool A: Korea 12 (Seo Jongho 3, You Hyosik , Jang Jonghyun 2, Nam Hyunwoo 3, Kim Youngjin, Yung Sunghoon, Yeo Woon Kon) beat Singapore 1 (Muhammad Sabri)  HT 5-1

Pool B: Pakistan 6 (Shakeel Abbasi 2, Sohail Abbas 2, Imran Muhammad 2) beat Bangladesh 1 (Barmon Taposh) HT 4-0

India 3 (Rajpal Singh, Sandeep Singh 2) beat Japan 2 (Hiroki Sakamoto 2) HT 1-1

Table of points: Pool B: India, Played 4, won 4, drawn nil, lost nil goals for 22, goals against 4, Points 12; Pakistan 4-3-0-1-28-6-9; Japan 4-2-0-2-13-13-6; Bangladesh 4-1-0-3-9-21-3; Hong Kong China 4-0-0-4-4-32-0

Monday’s matches: Women: Malaysia v Thailand; Korea v Japan; China v India