Chinese torture of malaysia hurts India

India, with eight points from four games two wins and two draws, meet South Korea tomorrow and a draw can, at best, give them nine points bringing the goal average into picture. That however, is little consolation, as China play a day after India-South Korea match and in the event of an impending tie, would know how many to slot past the Kazakhs. The Chinesehave a goal-difference of 12-1 and India, 19-2.

Bhangu was forced to rephrase his calculations today. “Nothing but a win against Korea,” he said. It remains to be seen how his team reacts to the situation, for they have been unable to press home the advantage after dominating against both Japan and China. And South Korea are a tougher nut to crack.

India’s recent performances against the Koreans show that they have been bridging the gap steadily. After their 1-2 loss in the final of the Bangkok Asian Games, they beat the Koreans twice in the four-nation tournament in Australia recently.

However, the worrying factor for the Indians is the midfield, which has failed to keep the attacks going. Left-half Sumrai Tete and right-half Sunita Dalal are slow when compared to the Chinese or even the Japanese, and their failure to build counter-attacks have put the extra burden on the overworked Pritam Rani Siwatch to force penalty corners, which don’t yield results anyway.

“We don’t have adequatereplacements,” the Indian coach shrugged.

That the two missed strokes against China are still playing on the mind of Bhangu, was apparent from his comment: “The Indian girls are not aggressive. They have to be mentally tougher to beat the top sides,” he added.

Meanwhile, Japan beat Kazakhstan 2-0 in an inconsequential encounter in the morning. K Miura and Tuka Ogura scored for the winners.

For the record, China scored through three goals through Yang Huiping and two through Hoi Xiaolan in the match agaainst Malaysia in which they earned 19 penalty corners. Zhou Wanfeng, Cai Xumei, Tang Chunling, Wang jiuyan, Chen Hong and Shen Lihong were the other scorers.