| India Enter Semis
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September 4, 2007
India 6 Bangladesh 0
Taking it a little easy after the energy-sapping victory over South Korea on Monday, India played at half-pace to beat Bangladesh 6-0 and cement their place in the semi-finals of the 2007 BSNL Asia Cup here on Tuesday. India now has 12 points with four outright victories and a match against Thailand in hand to be played on Wednesday.
India’s start was slow and it took almost 31 minutes before Raghunath trapped a cross from the right flank and scored from a field attempt. At the break, India led 1-0. India also had four penalty corners which didn’t produce a result. Bangladesh have their goalkeeper Zahid to thank who had done his home-work well as he dived parallel time and again to stop Dilip Tirkey’s straight drives. Raghunath was a little off-form as his flicks either didn’t have the power or were too wayward to produce a goal. It was only off the seventh penalty corner that Raghunath made one climb steeply that curved in and entered the corner for India to round off the tally at 6-0. After the break, Tushar, Shivender Singh, Prabhjot (2) and Raghunath closed out the match.
Prabhjot Singh was again in the scorers list with two goals. But it was his second of the match in the 57th minute that caught the eye. Trapping a ball inside the striking circle, he took a brilliant reverse shot that beat Zahid all ends up in the Bangladesh goal. In the 66th minute, Raghunath finally found the flick he was looking for as he made it curve wickedly to wind up the tally for India with a margin of 6-0.
Indian coach Joaquim Carvalho was pleased with the performance and said that the match against Korea had taken a lot out of the Indian team and they had decided to not press too much. “The players were a little lethargic but did enough to win comfortably.”
India’s semi-final opponents will come from Pool A and Carvalho will have to wait and see who finishes second in that pool.
Score Sheet:
Raghunath (31st, FG) 1-0
Tushar Kandeker (37th, FG) 2-0
Shivender Singh (38th, FG) 3-0
Prabhjot Singh (49th, FG) 4-0
Prabhjot Singh (57th, FG) 5-0
Raghunath (66th, PC) 6-0
| Schedule |
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Final Standings :
1. India
2. S Korea
3. Malaysia
4. Japan
5. China
6. Pakistan
7. Bangladesh
8. Hong Kong
9. Sri Lanka
10. Singapore
11. Thailand
Sunday's Matches  |
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| TEAM A | TEAM B | Playoff | TIME | RESULT | |||
| S Lanka | SPore | 9/10 | 08:00 | 6-0 | |||
| Ban | HKG | 7/8 | 07:00 | 3-1 | |||
| China | Pak | 5/6 | 09:30 | 3-2 | |||
| Malaysia | Japan | 3/4 | 16:00 | 5-3 | |||
| India | S Korea | 1/2 | 18:30 | 7-2 | |||
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Saturday's Matches |
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| TEAM A | v | TEAM B | TIME | RESULT | |||
| Singapore | v | Thailand | 08:00 | 4-0 | |||
| Pak | v | Ban | 07:00 | 10-0 | |||
| China | v | HongKong | 09:30 | 6-1 | |||
| S Korea | v | Malaysia | 17:00 | 2-1 | |||
| India | v | Japan | 19:30 | 4-1 | |||
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SCORE TABLE |
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| POOL A | |||||||
| TEAM | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | PTS |
| Malaysia SF | 4 | 3 | 1 | 26 | 4 | 10 | |
| Japan SF | 4 | 3 | 1 | 18 | 4 | 9 | |
| Pakistan | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 7 | 7 |
| Hong Kong | 4 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 28 | 3 | |
| Singapore | 4 | 4 | 2 | 27 | 0 | ||
| POOL B | |||||||
| TEAM | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | PTS |
| India SF | 5 | 5 | 46 | 2 | 15 | ||
| S Korea SF | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 41 | 8 | 10 |
| China | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 32 | 6 | 10 |
| Bangladesh | 5 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 22 | 6 | |
| Sri Lanka | 5 | 1 | 4 | 15 | 46 | 3 | |
| Thailand | 5 | 5 | 1 | 67 | 0 | ||
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 A team should be ready to play anyone. Of course, more |
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