Indian Hockey has been very focused on bringing the old glory days. The Tokyo Olympics glory was just a stepping stone of that. The Men's Asian Champions Trophy is the next assignment of the team where they take on 5 other Asian teams. However, Malaysia took their name from the tournament due to Covid-19 restrictions. India starts their journey with a well-fought draw against South Korea.
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In the first match of the Men's Asian Champions Trophy, striker Lalit Upadhyay made the most of the opportunity. He went on to be on the scoring list for India in the first half. India went 1-0 up in just the first four minutes of the match.
The blue brigade looked fairly comfortable against the South Korean defence. The joint defending champion with Pakistan went 2-0 up as the Indian vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh netted the ball from a penalty kick corner. Thus, the second half started with a bang for the Indians.
South Korea's comeback
However, the smiles could not last long as the Korean attacks kept on pushing the Indian defence. As a result, they earned their first penalty corner of the match. Harmanpreet Singh made a mistake by leaving the goal a bit earlier than the injection. Thus, India had to block the goal with a less man. Jonghyun Jang did not miss that opportunity as he netted the first goal for the South Korean at the end of the third quarter.
South Korea started the fourth quarter with more aggression. Soon, Kim Sung Hyun scored from an acute angle to make it 2-2 for them.
India kept on looking for the goal but without any result. Harmanpreet Singh scored from a penalty corner but went in vain as it was reviewed. The review showed that goal was eventually deflected in off the head of a Korean defender. Thus India had to settle with a 2-2 draw in the opening match of the Men's Asian Champions Trophy.
India will be playing hosts Bangladesh tomorrow at 3 pm.