Asian Champions Trophy Hockey: Impressive India held 1-1 by South Korea

Kuantan: India drew 1-1 with South Korea in their second match of the Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament here on Saturday.

For India, Lalit Upadhyay equalised in the 33rd minute for India after Junwoo Jeong had given the 1-0 lead to South Korea in the 10th minute.

India started the proceeding on a positive note as Talwinder Singh penetrated the Korean defence. He made two shots from close range but Korean goalkeeper Dong Doopyo made a double save.

India, however did not gave up and held the ball in the midfield to prepare for another attack. But the Koreans replied with the counter-attacks.

The failed chance came when Jasjit Kular gave a loose pass to custodian P.R. Sreejesh and the Korean attacker intercepted the ball.

In the 10th minute, the sloppy marking by India resulted in a goal as Junwoo Jeong scored from the edge of the D to give his team a vital lead. An error in passing by defender Rupinder Pal Singh gave South Korea a chance to counter-attack and Jeong pounced on ball to score.

The second quarter saw some early penetration by India as Sardar Singh injected the ball close to the goal post and Rupinder slammed hard, but the Korean goalkeeper got his hand out and saved.

The blue sticks also got their first penalty corner of the match but Korean goalkeeper Doopyo made an easy save of a flick that was direct.

India`s circle penetration was 15 while Korea have managed only five but yet it was Korea who lead till the end of the second quarter.

After giving the initial space to India in the second quarter, the Koreans came back strongly into the third but it was India which proved themselves superior and scored an equaliser in the 33rd minute.

Nikkin Thimmaiah started the play from the right and bulldozed through the Korean defence running from the right flag to pass the ball to Upadhyay, who was positioned at the edge of the D and after a couple of fumble, Lalit found the goal with the reverse stick.

Several other chances including penalty corners came in the dying minutes of the third quarter but India failed to score.

The fourth quarter saw some great work as both teams counter attacked each other But with less than 10 minutes in the match, Surender Kumar was given a green card and Korea earned their third PC but it was stopped by Sreejesh to keep it 1-1.