Malaysia deny India place in the final

Ipoh (Malaysia), May 6
A listless India slumped to a heartbreaking 1-0 defeat against hosts Malaysia in their last league match and failed to reach the final of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament for the second consecutive year here today. Needing to win by a two-goal margin to make the final after Great Britain 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 tomorrow play New Zealand 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 Britain to the bronze-medal game, but Malaysia turned the tables on India.
Malaysia made two early forays into the Indian circle, but were thwarted by the defenders. After a listless first quarter, India managed to earn three penalty corners in the next 15 minutes, but Malaysian goalkeeper effected two diving deflections.
In the second quarter, a move between Talwinder Singh and Akashdeep had the Malaysian defenders falling back to crowd the goalmouth. As a result of the move, India earned two successive penalty corners but failed to make them count.
Error prone
India showed more purpose in the second half but their attack was still not cohesive; the strikers made errors on reaching the top of the circle. India’s desperation was evident at the start of the last quarter when they took off the goalkeeper and made Harmanpreet Singh the kicker-back. The goalkeeper was back within a minute when Manpreet Singh was sent off. And when Manpreet came back in the 47th minute, so did the kicker-back.
The move added a bit of thrust to the Indian attack but the goal continued to remain elusive. In the 50th minute, Malaysia went ahead with a penalty corner conversion through Shahril Saabah’s measured drag-flick to the right of the goalkeeper. 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.
Japan stun Australia
In what turned out to be the day of the underdogs, world No. 16 Japan pulled off a stunning upset with a 3-2 victory over reigning world champions Australia. Despite the loss, Australia still made the final, where they will meet Britain.