India trounce Japan 5-0 to set up final duel with Malaysia

On the eve of Indiarsquos semifinal clash against Japan here coach Craig Fulton had said that itrsquos time to score and thatrsquos exactly what his team didIndia beat Japan 50mdashmore importantly with four of those strikes being muchneeded field goalsmdashto storm into the final of the Asian Champions Trophy at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Hockey Stadium here on FridayThe hosts began the match on a quick note with their forwards showing some good coordination and intent They were rewarded for it immediately when Jarmanpreet Singh earned India its first penalty corner in as early as the second minute However skipper Harmanpreet Singh saw his drag flick padded away by Japan custodian Takashi Yoshikawa Four minutes later Gurjant Singh and Hardik Singh worked out a fine 12 move inside the Japanese box but the final pass was not on target Moments later a Japanese move met with the same fate Shota Yamadarsquos final pass hopelessly went across the Indian goal with no one to get that final touch as the quarter finished goallessAkashdeep opens the scoringIndia began the second quarter briskly and reaped a quick reward for it Four minutes into the restart Hardik Singh played a fine wall pass and relayed a cross across the Japanese goal which Takashi padded away but only to Akashdeep Singh who made no mistake with his firsttime shot on goal Off another speedy attack India earned their second short corner in the 23rd minute and this time Harmanpreet made no mistake beating Takasi to his left with a low shot to add one more to his tournamentleading tally of seven goals In the last minute of the quarter hardworking midfielder Manpreet Singh made a scintillating run down the centre of the Japanese striking circle before unleashing a shot that saw Mandeep add the final touch into the goal to make it 30Also Read Playing Asian Champions Trophy on Poligras turf will help teams at Paris Olympics Krishan Bahadur PathakThe third quarter saw India take their foot off the pedal a bit but even then they scored once again thanks to the brilliance of Manpreet He ran in from the right and relayed an inchperfect through pass to Sumit 39th min who received the ball and flicked it past a hapless TakahashiIndia completed the rout in the fourth quarter thanks to the effective use of the long high ball once again Harmanpreet who time and again found his forwards inside the Japanese box with his long aerial passes this time found Sukhjeet Singh who swiftly passed the ball to local lad Karthi Selvam 51st min to hammer home for 50 India will meet Malaysia in todayrsquos finalMalaysia beat Korea 62Earlier Malaysia beat Korea 62 in the first semifinal Korea opened the scoring in the second minute through Woo Cheon Ji only to see Malaysiarsquos Abu Kamal Azrai equalise in the next minute It was Malaysia all the way thereafter as Najmi Jazlan 9th and 21st min and Shello Silverius 47th and 48th netted a brace each while Faizal Saari added one to complete the tally Korea got their second goal through Jonghyun Jang 21st min