Indian women’s team suffer first defeat of South Korea Hockey Tour

03/08/2018

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The Indian women’s hockey team suffered their first defeat of the South Korea Hockey Tour when they lost 1-2 to the hosts in the third match of the 5 match series at the Jinchun National Athletic Centre. India will now face Korea in the fourth match of the tour scheduled to be played on March 9.

After winning the first 2 games of the tour, Indian women’s hockey team looked to be favorites of wrapping up the tour with a win in the 3rd match of the 5 match series. But to their surprise, the Koreans started off with a flurry and scored two goals in the first quarter which was enough to hand visitors their first defeat of the tour.

India started the third game on a positive note and were given a tough competition by the hosts as the two teams equally shared the spoils for the first 10 minutes of the game. But a 12th-minute penalty corner was converted by South Korea’s Seul Ki Cheon which helped the visitors to take a 1-0 lead. Two minutes later, the Indian defense gifted another penalty corner to the hosts which was converted by Yurim Lee which meant that the hosts were enjoying a 2 goal cushion at the end of the first quarter itself.

India responded well in the second quarter as the Lalremsiami scored for the Indian team four minutes in to make the scoreline 1-2. India kept on repetitively attacking but a good Korean defense and few exceptional saves by their goalkeeper Heabin Jung helped Korea maintain the one-goal lead heading halftime.

The third quarter belonged to the Koreans as they shrugged off the rusty second quarter performance and started attacking from the getgo. However, they failed to take the advantage of their multiple attacks thanks to Indian goalkeeper Rajani Etimarpu, who managed to keep the Korean attackers at bay as the Indian saved three penalty corner that were awarded to the host team in the third quarter.

India now had just 15 minutes to at least tie the game and as expected they kept on creating goal scoring opportunities. The Indian team were awarded 2 penalty corners in the last four minutes of the quarter but to their surprise, Heabin Jung made two brilliant saves to deny them an equalizer and hand Korea their first win of the tour.

India will look to bounce back from their loss and will try to win the series when they face South Korea in the fourth match of the tour on Friday.

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