Indian eves suffer second defeat, misses final berth in hockey

Doha, Dec 9 (UNI) A disoriented India gave an insipid display and went down 0-2 to Japan as their hopes of making to the final of the women hockey competition went up in smoke in the Asian Games here today.

India have lost two and won three matches and will take on Korea in their last round robin league match and will battle for the third place.

The defeat also ended India's hope of making it to the Beijing Olympiad from here and they will now have to go through the qualifying tournament to hope for a berth in the 2008 Olympics.

''Well, the girls did not click well and muffed six penalty corners. At this level of competition you can not afford to miss so many chances,'' said dejected coach M K Kaushik.

Japan displayed total professional attitude. They seemed interested in collecting full three points rather then to go after big victory margin.

They sealed the match in their favour in the first nine minutes in which they slammed two goals and after that shut their doors.

The Japanese took the lead in the sixth minute through Tomomi Komori and three minutes later made it 2-0 with Kaori Chiba scoring a delightful goal.

But after that, the Japanese showed no interest in increasing the lead while the Indians indulged in aimless running all over the place.

The Indians were totally lackadaisical in their approach and there was no urgency in their game plan.

Surinder Kaur, Jyoti Kullu and Pushpa Pradhan wasted lot of their sweat without any purpose while the midfield was totally paralysed.

The Indians were lucky that their rivals were in no mood to score or exert much and the result was that match became a dull and drab affair.

The Indians realised their limitations of not being able to score and they also gave up and the ball was confined to the midfield for remaining period and when the final hotter was sounded both the teams looked much relieved.

Japan tops the table with 13 points, having won four and drawn one, followed by China with 12 points after four wins and a lose.

India have nine points for three won two lost while korea have seven points with two wins and a draw and they have two more matches to play.

UNI HSB AY RN2119