Japanese women hold China to goalless draw

China forced four penalty-corners, three in first half, but failed to make anything out ofit, and given their forwards’ poor shooting skills, it looked anybody’s match till the end.

China’s best chance came in the 66th minute, when Yang Huipang moved up from right and sent a crisp cross inside the circle. Shen Lihong managed to get her stick to it, but Japanese goalkeeper Nami Miyazaki made a tremendous reflex save to deny China full points.

Earlier, Kazakhstan forwards Imangalieva Gulnara, Tatyana Marchenko and Yelena Svirska had a good game. Kazakstan took the lead through Tatyana in the third minute and Malaysia equalised as Che Inan Melati scored.

Kazakhstan then slamed in three in a row through Tatyana, Yelena and Yekatarina Voronkova to put the issue beyond doubt. Malaysia got the consolation goal in the dying minutes, Melati once again getting on the scorers’ list.

With all the six teams having played two matches each, India are leading the table with six points with two wins. South Korea have four points with a win and a draw, while China have two points from two draws. Kazakhstanopened their account with three points from today’s victory, and Japan snatched a point today. Malaysia are at the bottom having lost both their matches.

Saturday’s match: Malaysia vs Korea: 1.00 pm; India vs Japan: 3.00 pm

We are missing Neha’

Indian coach Gurdyal Singh Bhangu said today that he was happy with the way the team had shaped up so far in the tournament, but admitted he was missing the young and versatile forward Neha Singh, who has yet to recover from a knee injury.

“Neha played very well in the four-nation tournament in Australia. We want to save her for Milton Keynes Sydeny Olympics Qualifiers, so that she does not go the Rajeev Mishra way,” the coach said.

It may be recalled that Rajeev Mishra was India’s main striker in the junior men’s World Cup at Milton Keynes. But his promising career was cut short due to a knee injury.

Meanwhile, Bhangu said that South Korea will be the main hurdle on India’s path to a World Cup berth. “Korea are better than China andJapan and they will certainly trouble us. However, we beat them 3-1 in the four-nation tournament in Australia recently and they look beatable even now,” Bhangu said.

India have won both their matches comfortably so far, but the wins came against relatively weaker sides and Bhangu admitted that the “real challenge starts tomorrow”.

“The girls have been shaping up well, and we have to maintain a clean slate,” Bhangu said. On the fitness level of his players, Bhangu said that the Indians are “as fit as Koreans and fitter than China and Japan. We have worked every hard on this aspect in the past year and it should pay dividends,” the coach said.