Defending champions and Olympic bronze medalist India put up a stellar 3-5 loss to Japan in the second semi-final of the Asian Champions Trophy men’s hockey tournament here on Tuesday.
India were heavy favorites on a head-to-head record after beating equal opponents 6–0 in their previous round-robin match before the start of the match, but the Japanese had other plans.
Japan were a completely different side on Tuesday as they played with the defense of the Manpreet Singh-led side from the very beginning.
The Indians were nowhere close to their final match performance against Japan as their defense collapsed under relentless pressure from the lower-order opposition from the start of the match.
This was in stark contrast to the performance that India displayed in their last outing against Japan as the Olympic medalists never recovered from their opening goals.
Japan took a 2-0 lead within the first two minutes and it seems the Indians were dealt a blow and played catch-up hockey after that.
Japan scored through Shota Yamada (1st minute, penalties), Raiki Fujishima (2nd), Yoshiki Kirishita (29th), Kosei Kawabe (35th) and Ryoma Oka (41st).
Hardik Singh (17th, 58th) and vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh (43rd) scored for India.
India and Japan had met 18 times, with the hosts winning 16 games, while Japan emerged victorious once and ended in a draw.
Japan will now take on South Korea in the summit clash, while India will once again take on Pakistan in the bronze medal bout on Wednesday.
The tournament ended in an antagonistic climax for India after topping the round robin stages with an unbeaten record.
In the second semi-final of the day, South Korea beat Pakistan 6-5 in a thrilling encounter.
The Indians should have gone into the match with confidence after their last round-robin match, but on Tuesday the scenario was completely different.
It was the Japanese who were all out attacking from the first whistle and completely dominated the opening quarter.
Japan’s dominance can be gauged from the fact that they scored six penalty corners in the first six minutes, of which two were goals. He secured his first penalty corner in the very first minute, which resulted in a penalty stroke and Yamada made no mistake from the spot.
The Asian Games gold medalists continued to put pressure on the Indian defense, scoring five more penalty corners in a minute and a half, one of which resulted in another goal through Raiki Fujishima.
Japan completely dominated the first 15 minutes as they launched attack after attack on the Indian target to stun the Olympic bronze medalists.
It was an utterly disappointing performance from India as they could not create a single goal in the first 15 minutes.
After being set up by skipper Manpreet Singh and Dilpreet Singh, trailing by two goals, the Indians came out with more objective in the second quarter and narrowed the gap in the 17th minute through Hardik’s field goal.
India kept up the pressure and got their first penalty corner in the 19th minute but Neelam Sanjeev Zess’s effort was saved by the Japanese goalkeeper.
But Japan did not hold back and relied on their quick-witted counter-attacks, which caught the Indian defense on several occasions in the match.
With such a counter-attack, Japan earned another penalty stroke for a handicap by India’s custodian Krishna Bahadur Pathak and this time Kirishita stepped up and turned a breather to take a 3-1 lead.
After a change of ends, Japan surprised India again when Kawabe tapped a loose ball into the open goal and the Indian defense gave up thinking that he had accepted a penalty corner. But, the umpire took advantage.
Oka tapped from close range in the 41st minute after setting up a fine work from Kenta Tanaka from the left bank.
Two minutes later, Harmanpreet converted a penalty corner from India’s second penalty corner.
Trailing 2-5, India were all out in pursuit of goals and soon got two more penalty corners but both were wasted.
With just over a minute to go, India secured their fifth penalty corner, and this time Hardik scored his second goal of the day from a variation.
India captain Manpreet Singh was quite upset with the result.
“Not the result we wanted. We were a bit lazy in the beginning, we conceded 2 opening goals. Big lesson for us is that we can’t underestimate any team, we need to be ready for tomorrow’s match “
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