Much-hyped clash proves a mis-match

India, who finished their league engagements with two wins from three matches, will meet Australia in the final tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Grant Schubert scored three goals as Australia ‘A’ upset their senior team 7-2 in the last league match of the tournament. The Australian team which had not conceded even a single goal before the start of the match, put up a rank bad performance to suffer their first defeat in the four-team competition.

The victory was India’s fourth in the five matches played between them in the last one year. ‘‘As usual the match was quite exciting. But we prevailed as we played well in all the departments and dominated them for most part of the match,’’ an elated Indian coach Rajinder Singh said after the match.

India, who have come to the tournament aiming to fine-tune their skills for the Champions Trophy in August and next year’s Athens Olympics, began well by exerting pressure on the opposition defence with some fine moves, led by mercurial striker Dhanraj Pillay, Dhillon and Prabhojot Singh.

Though the Indian strikers completely outshone their counterparts in the first 15 minutes, success came only in the 18th minute when they earned a penalty corner. Putting into play all his experience, Dhillon scored off the penalty corner to give the side 1-0 lead which the Indians managed to hold till the half time.

Pakistan, desperate to snatch a big win for a place in the final, stepped on the gas for an equaliser in the second half. But they failed to penetrate the Indian defence due to some brilliant defending.