It was a glorious night for Malaysia as coach Stephen van Huizen’s young warriors spiked Pakistan’s strong comeback in the fourth quarter to run away with a 1-0 win in the 25th Silver Jubilee Sultan Azlan Shah Cup Ipoh on Wednesday.
World No 1 Australia also overcame a gritty and resilient Japan 3-1 to advance to Saturday’s final. The Kookaburras will have to wait until Friday to know of their opponents after the Indians conclude their fixtures with the Malaysians.
The Aussies are poised to end the first round with ‘an expected’ victory over the Canadians on Friday judging from their great form, unless the North American nation pulls out a magic wand and upset the tournament favourites.
Should Malaysia continues its fine run by upsetting 2014 Asian Games gold medallist India narrowly, it perfectly opens the door for the Black Sticks to step on the pitch in the final. However, a win for India will see the final turn into a contest between Indians and eight-time champions Australians.
This will be Australia’s 11th appearance in the final since the inception of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in 1983. They emerged champions eight times and runners-up three times, the last being in 2015 following a 3-1 defeat to the Kiwis in penalty shoot-out.
Another fright night greeted the more than 7,000 home fans that had to endure painful and breath-taking moments especially in the last 10 minutes of play as the Pakistanis, who arrived in the tournament with confidence but gradually ended up as canon fodders, came charging from all corners and angles in search of the equaliser first, and then the winning goal.
It was also a glorious night for Malaysian reserve goalkeeper Abd Rahman Hairi who had practically locked out Pakistan’s marauding forward line from scoring as many chances that came their way, some just within a flick of the ball.
This is the second time Malaysia had defeated Pakistan in three years, the last being at 2013 World League Semi-Finals in Johor Baru with a 3-1 winning score. For all their efforts tonight Malaysia moved up to fourth in the table standings with eight points and qualified to play in the third-fourth playoff on Saturday.
The Australians top the round-robin league with five 15 points from five wins while New Zealand are second (11) and India third (9) followed by Canada in fifth (5) and face Australian on Friday. The Pakistanis are almost at rock bottom in sixth position with three points and Japan last (0).
Inspired by the great turnout of fans, the Malaysians got off to a rousing start by taking a quick look at the Pakistani goalmouth in less than three minutes. The hosts were awarded a penalty corner and skipper Razie Rahim was unchallenged as he packed a powerful low push to the left of goalkeeper Imran Butt. The goal also signalled the start of what is to be an explosive night between the two sides.
Pakistan’s Ahmad Ajaz also had a great chance to put his side level in the 33rd minute and he had only Abdul Rahman to beat but the keeper did well to stop the first hit and a rebound from the Pakistani striker.
The last quarter was littered with mistakes and it’s hard to imagine just how Pakistan failed to get a goal or two and probably end their own misery too here.
“We played well in patches,” said van Huizen. “We scored from one penalty corner and maintained the lead. But the last 10 minutes was indeed tormenting and we must give credit to the players for putting up a strong defence in the wake of Pakistan’s quick attacks in the closing stages.”
The Malaysian head coach also down played Malaysia’s chances of making the final.
“We have to beat India by a huge margin to reach the final. Let’s just go out and play a good game against India,” he added.
The Australians were on top of the game and deservingly took the lead two minutes into the second quarter when Jamie Dwyer’s shot was too hot to handle by goalkeeper Takashi Yoshikawa while Blake Govers added the second goal in the 30th minute.
Dwyer, 37, was on target again in the 36th minute to make it 3-0 but Japan reduced the deficit a minute later when Kentaro Fukuda deflect a penalty corner attempt into goal. Tough the Australians won 3-1 they have lot of work to do in terms of penalty corner conversions which eluded them terrible today. They had 10 penalty corners but succeeded in one.
“There were periods we got our structure right. Part of the game, we were awful. It was disappointing and frustrating as a coach. We have to reassess our game against Canada on Friday,” said Australian head coach Graham Reid.
Nick Wilson had earlier derailed India’s plans of taking a giant step into the final when the defending champions clawed back to pull a 2-1 victory in their last match today.
With this win, New Zealand moved to second position with 11 points from six matches. Last year’s bronze medallists India are third with nine points from five matches. India can still feature in the final should they beat Malaysia in their last match on Friday.
India’s head coach Roelant Oltmans was forced to parade goalkeeper Harjot Singh after Akash Chikte injured himself during a warm-up session minutes before start of the match against New Zealand. The Indians got the first penalty corner five minutes into the second quarter but Ramandeep Singh’s attempt was deflected away by goalkeeper Devon Manchester.
Kane Russell gave New Zealand the lead in the 28th minute after defender Manpreet Singh had mistakenly deflected the ball into his own goal in his attempt to clear the ball away but the Indians were back in the game via Mandeep Singh’s 36th minute equaliser in a goalmouth melee.
The Black Sticks were gifted with a golden opportunity in the 41st minute after a poor clearance by Harmanpreet Singh which allowed Wilson to rob the ball and put past Harjot as New Zealand celebrated a 2-1 victory.
A disappointed Oltmans said India could not produce the energy it had exhibited in earlier matches as temperature raised up to 37 degrees Celsius.
“I’m disappointed with the loss. We had our chances that we could not convert. The hot and humid conditions took a lot out of the boys and we were not able to get the energy we had shown in our earlier matches,” said Oltmans, who praised New Zealand for overcoming the conditions better.
“I have a lot of respect for New Zealand, who’ve played three matches in the afternoon during the past four days,” said Oltmans.
New Zealand’s coach Colin Batch said his players showed good signs and the reward was a victory over India, adding that it was hotter today than on Tuesday.
“The players only get some relief when the sun goes behind the clouds,” said Batch. “We did not do that very well for a period in the second half, but came back strongly to dictate the game in the last quarter,” said Batch.
New Zealand will have a two-day break to recover from the effects of the energy-sapping matches the whole week before the medal play-offs on Saturday.
“Whether we play in the final or not is out of our hands. We will closely observe the results on Friday between Malaysia and India,” he said.
