India beat Malaysia to reach women's Asian CT final

DONGHAE CITY: Defending champions India on Thursday breezed into the summit conflict of the ladies's Asian Champions Trophy after edging previous Malaysia Three-2, their 3rd consecutive victory.

ALSO READ: India beat China Three-1 in women's Asian Champions Trophy

India, who beat Japan 4-1 and China Three-1 of their previous matches, certified for the overall with a match in hand of their pool.

They are sitting atop the table with 9 points and can next tackle hosts Korea of their ultimate pool match on Saturday earlier than Sunday's ultimate.

Gurjit Kaur (17'), Vandana Katariya (33') and Lalremsiami (40') sounded the board for Indian whilst Nuraini Rashid (36') and Hanis Onn (48') scored for Malaysia.

"We could have made better use of our chances to score today. Though we are happy with the win, we are not very happy about how we played. We will go back to the team hotel and discuss about the mistakes we made and how to improve ahead of the next match against Korea," staff skipper Sunita mentioned after the match.

ALSO READ: Navneet's hat-trick floors Japan in Asian Champions Trophy

The first quarter noticed each groups industry penalty corners with India opening the account in the first actual minute of the match which put Malaysia on a back-foot.

However, just right PC defending noticed Malaysia keep away from an early purpose by drag-flicker Gurjit. Malaysia's try to ranking off a PC too used to be thwarted by the Indian defenders.

India, who had overwhelmed Malaysia 6-Zero within the warm-up match forward of the match, made their first step forward when PC specialist Gurjit improvised on Lilima Minz injection to strike the ball previous Malaysian goalkeeper.

She stored her flick low to seek out the bottom proper nook of the purpose fetching India a 1-Zero lead within the 17th minute.

India despite the fact that didn't have a look at their attacking very best with Malaysia steadily denting their probabilities within the circle and stored the pressure on India. Their goalkeeper also came up with spectacular saves to stay India from scoring from PCs.

However, the ten-minute half-time spoil helped India come back with recent diversifications to attain. High press labored as India scored off a counter attack when a quick-thinking Vandana dispossessed Malaysian attacker inside of India's hanging circle to attain within the 33rd minute.

Soon after, India conceded a penalty stroke when defender Deep Grace caused an infringement whilst making an attempt to forestall Malaysian attacker from taking a shot on purpose. Nuraini broke no sweat in converting the penalty stroke.

The following minutes noticed India win as many as three PCs but may just no longer make a lot of it. Meanwhile, a brilliant lengthy cross by skipper Sunita Lakra to the hanging circle used to be deflected into the purpose by younger ahead Lalremsiami from the top of the circle, showing a super one-touch hockey.

The purpose took India's result in Three-1 within the 40th minute.

The ultimate quarter noticed Malaysia make amends to ignored probabilities as they vied for past due objectives. Though Hanis did neatly to attain Malaysia's second purpose, they might no longer get an equaliser.