Hulunbuir. With the help of two goals from captain Harmanpreet Singh, defending champion India defeated Korea 3-1 on Thursday and registered its fourth consecutive win in the Hero Asian Champions Trophy. Paris Olympics bronze medalist India defeated China 3-0, Japan 5-0 and Malaysia 8-1. The Indian team, which has made it to the semi-finals, will now play against Pakistan in the last league match on Saturday.
The top four teams in the six-team tournament will qualify for the semi-finals which will be played on Monday while the final will be held on Tuesday. India maintained its excellent form and took a two-goal lead in the first quarter itself. Arijeet Singh Hundal, who scored two goals against Malaysia, scored the first goal in the eighth minute. After this, Harmanpreet, one of the best drag flickers in the world, converted two penalty corners in the ninth and 43rd minutes. The only goal for Korea was scored by Jihun Yang on a penalty corner in the 30th minute.
India once again started aggressively and Arijeet scored the first goal on a pass from Sukhjeet Singh. A minute later, Rajkumar Pal, who scored a hat-trick against Malaysia, got India a penalty corner on which Harmanpreet scored a goal.
India’s reserve goalkeeper Suraj Karkera performed impressively and did not allow Korea to score in the second quarter.
In the second quarter, Korea made several attacks on the Indian goal and in the last minute Yang scored a goal from a penalty corner.
Korea got two consecutive penalty corners in the 35th minute but the Indian defense was alert. India got a second penalty corner two minutes later but could not score a goal. Harmanpreet scored a goal on a penalty corner in the 43rd minute to increase India’s lead to 3-1. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Harmanpreet Singh missed a penalty corner but the Korean team could not score a goal on it.