India blank Malaysia 4-0, finish fifth in men's hockey

Doha, Dec 14 (UNI) V Raghunath fired a brace as India downed Malaysia 4-0 to finish fifth in the Asian Games men's hockey competition here today.

India earned two penalty corners, one in each half, and Raghunath converted both of them.

Rajpal Singh and Gurbaz Singh were the other goal-getters.

At half time, India led 1-0.

The match turned out to be a tame affair with the Indians dominating while the Malaysians seemed not interested in going full blast and they just went through their motions. They earned three penalty corners but failed to convert any of them.

India, after showing initial aggression, slowed down the pace of the game with the passage of time.

India shot into the lead in the 13th minute when Raghunath, with a superb powerful drag-flick, converted the penalty corner (1-0).

The Malaysians retaliated and that fetched them a penalty corner which was muffed. After that couple of more raids followed which kept the Indian defence busy for some time but soon the ball travelled back into the rival side and then stayed into that half till the breather.

The Indian midfielders controlled the proceedings of the game and the Malaysian forwards hardly made any serious attempt to cut through them. The tempo of the game slackened further as lemon break time approached.

The second session saw the Indians on the attack most of the time. Six minutes into this session, the winners hit their second goal through striker Rajpal Singh (2-0).

Then another raid saw Tushar Khandekar darting past the defenders but found himself in a very narrow angle and could no score.

The Malaysians attacked in bit and pieces and there was no cohesion in their moves and Indian goalkeeper Bharat Chettri was never very seriously tested.

Despite having more possession of the ball and more space to cover, the Indians took another 20 minutes to score their third goal and this came when they earned their second penalty corner. This time too Raghunath was bang on target as his powerful drag-flick beat the goalkeeper all ends up (3-0).

Three minute later, India firmly sealed the match in their favour when midfielder Gurbaz intercepted a loose ball, side-stepped couple of defenders to shot home the fourth goal.

The rest six minutes were played in good camaraderie with both teams avoiding to attack each other but there was no doubt about Indian domination and superiority.

For once, India displayed free-flowing game and dictated the course of the play and it was a good win to finish the tournament.

''Any victory is good,'' said coach V Baskaran after the game.

''The boys played well and controlled the game through out,'' he added.

Earlier, Bangladesh beat Chinese Taipei 5-1 to take the seventh place.

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