2024-09-17 21:23:30
Hulunbuir (China): The Indian men’s hockey team has booked a ticket to the final of the Asian Champions Trophy 2024. India faced South Korea in the semi-final match. India took the lead in the first quarter itself and South Korea could not even equalize during the entire match. India won this match 4-1. Captain Harmanpreet Singh scored two goals for India. He has scored 7 goals in the tournament. Captain Harmanpreet Singh scored for India in the 19th and 45th minutes. Apart from him, Uttam Singh (13th minute) and Jarmanpreet Singh (32nd minute) scored one goal each. Yang Jihun (33rd minute) scored the only goal for Korea on a penalty corner. India will face host China in the final to be held on Tuesday. India defeated China 3-0 in the league stage match. Earlier, China defeated Pakistan 2-0 via shootout in the first semi-final of the day. After the stipulated time, both the teams were tied 1-1. Pakistan and Korea teams will face each other in the third place match.
India attacked from the very beginning
As expected, India adopted an aggressive approach from the beginning and kept the Korean defense under constant pressure. On the other hand, Korea focused on defense and adopted the strategy of counterattacking from time to time. Abhishek came close to giving India the lead in the fourth minute itself but his shot from the reverse hit was stopped by Korean goalkeeper Kim Jae-hen. The Indian team was successful in penetrating the Korean circle continuously in the first quarter, the benefit of which came to the team in the 13th minute when Uttam scored a goal from the right end on a pass from Arijit Singh Hundal.
Korea’s account opened in the third quarter
At the start of the second quarter, Korea got two consecutive penalty corners but the team could not take advantage of them. In the fourth minute of the second quarter, India got its first penalty corner on which captain Harmanpreet scored his sixth goal of the tournament and put the team ahead by 2-0. By the interval, the Indian team was ahead by 2-0. At the start of the third quarter, India made the score 3-0 when Sumit scooped and passed the ball to Germanpreet on the left flank and he made no mistake in putting it into the goal. Tournament top scorer Jihun opened Korea’s account by scoring a goal on a penalty corner.
With just one second left in the third quarter, India got another penalty corner when Korea’s goalkeeper Jae-hen was shown a yellow card for stopping the ball with his hand outside the circle. Harmanpreet scored from the penalty corner to put India ahead 4-1. In the fourth and final quarter, India’s goalkeeper Suraj Karkera thwarted two attempts by Park Cheolion. Korea also got a penalty corner but the team failed to score on this too and India made it to the final of the tournament for the sixth time.