South Korea stand firm against misfiring India

Dhaka, December 14

Defending champions India were held to a 2-2 draw by a fighting South Korea in their opening match of the Asian Champions Trophy here today.

Playing in the first tournament after their historic Tokyo Olympics campaign, India started brightly and scored in the fourth minute through Lalit Upadhyay before vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh doubled their lead through a penalty corner in the 18th.

Trailing 0-2, South Korea rallied after the change of ends and scored through Jonghyun Jang (41st minute) and Sunghyun Kim (46th) to draw parity.

The Manpreet Singh-led side had numerous chances, including penalty corners, but failed to utilise them as the match ended in a stalemate.

Jaehyeon Kim was outstanding for the South Koreans and produced some brilliant saves to help his side steal a point from the game.

Skipper Manpreet expressed his disappointment with the result but was confident the team would bounce back. “Korea were really good today with their defence and their goalkeeper was quite outstanding. We expected them to give us a hard time and hence it was important we started well. But we couldn’t keep up that momentum going into the third and fourth quarter. Nonetheless, this was the first match of the tournament and we surely will bounce back tomorrow against Bangladesh,” he stated.

In the last edition of the tournament, the two sides had played out a draw. India next play hosts Bangladesh tomorrow.

The tournament lost some of its sheen when title contenders Malaysia were forced to withdraw after a player tested Covid positive during a preparatory camp for the tournament. As per the current regulations in the country, all the players and coaching staff were classified as close contacts and therefore had to quarantine for a minimum period of seven days, effectively disrupting their preparations. — PTI