Donghae City: Defending champions India breezed into the final of the women’s Asian Champions Trophy after edging past Malaysia 3-2 on Thursday, their third consecutive victory.
India, who beat Japan 4-1 and China 3-1 in their previous matches, qualified for the final with a match in hand in their pool.
They are on top of the table with nine points and will next take on hosts South Korea in their final pool match on Saturday before Sunday’s final.
Gurjit Kaur, Vandana Katariya and Lalremsiami scored for India while Nuraini Rashid and Hanis Onn struck 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,” said team skipper Sunita said after the match.
India, who had beaten Malaysia 6-0 in the warm-up match ahead of the tournament, made their first breakthrough when penalty corner specialist Gurjit improvised to strike the ball past Malaysian goalkeeper.
India then scored off a counter-attack when a quick-thinking Vandana dispossessed a Malaysian attacker inside India’s area to score in the 33rd minute before Nuraini converted a penalty stroke to pull one back.
Lalremsiami, displaying a perfect one-touch hockey, restored India’s two-goal lead in the 40th minute.
The final quarter saw Hanis score Malaysia’s second goal, but they could not find an equaliser.
