India and South Korea Declared Joint Champions in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2010

India and South Korea were declared joint champions in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2010 after the final match was washed out due to heavy rain. The match continued only for 6 minutes and 14 seconds before it was called off. Neither side could score any goal during this time.

Earlier in the day, Australia clinched the 3^rd spot after defeating Malaysia 5-3 earlier in the day, while Pakistan defeated China 6-5 in tie-breaker to win the 5^th place in the tournament. So, Malaysia finished 4^th and China ended up in the 5^th place in the tournament.

Both India and South Korea will be honored with 11 champion’s medals. For India, this is the 5^th title overall, and 2^nd in a row, while for South Korea, this is the 2^nd title in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup.

India reached the tournament final with highest 13 points from 6 games including 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 lose. South Korea followed India in the point table with 11 points thanks to 3 wins, 2 draws and a defeat. Korea edged past Malaysia and Australia on better goal difference.

South Korea’s Nam Hyun Woo has become the top scorer in the tournament with 9 goals. Malaysian goalkeeper S. Kumar has been named best goalkeeper in the tournament, while Sardar Singh from India clinched the player of the tournament title. Egypt was awarded the fair play award.

Coaches of the 7 participating teams along with 3 judges selected 11 players who constitute the Azlan Shah XI 2010. Here are the names of the 11 players:

Goalkeeper

Kumar Subramanian (Malaysia)

Defenders

Sardar Singh (India), Lee Nam Yeong (South Korea), Gurbaj Singh (India), Mohamad Imran (Pakistan)

Midfielders

Hong Eun Seong (South Korea), Arjun Hallapa (India), Baljit Singh (Malaysia)

Forwards

Tengku Ahmad Tajudin (Malaysia), You Hyo Sik (South Korea), Kieran Govers (Australia)

India vs South Korea Final of Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2010

India takes on South Korea in the final of Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2010 hockey tournament which is currently going on in Malaysia. For both sides, this will be the sixth appearance in the tournament final. India won the title on 4 occasions, while South Korea could win it only once.

The match kicks off at 20:35 local time (12:35 GMT). According to Indian time, the match begins at 18:05. In South Korea the match starts at 21:35.

Indian hockey team is the defending champion of the tournament and their appearance in this year’s final will be third time in 3 years. Record shows India’s performance in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup has been excellent over the last few years.

South Korea’s performance was not any great in the recent past as they played in the tournament final last time in 2005. Their only success in the tournament came in 1999 when they defeated Australia in the tournament final.

India reached the final winning 4 out of their 6 matches, but their recent form in world hockey is not very good. India failed to impress in this year’s world cup hockey at home. They even could not reach the semi final.

South Korea’s performance was equally frustrating in the world cup. So, it seems Korean players will be determined to compensate their fans winning the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2010 title. Indian players will also be looking to do the same in an attempt to give some opportunity to their fans to cheer on.

Though their 5-2 defeat to Malaysia in the preliminary stage came as a big shock, India has a plenty of other reasons to be full of confident ahead of the final match. India already defeated world champion Australia, Pakistan and South Korea in the tournament.

India have a number of in-form players including Tushar Khandekar, who is currently India’s leading scorer in the tournament with 5 goals, and Dhananjay Mahadik who bagged a hat-trick against Egypt in their last game.

South Korea also has some positives from the tournament. Korea’s 3 wins so far in the tournament came against 3 bottom-placed teams- Pakistan, China and Egypt. That means, they could not win any match against the top 4 teams. However, it does not mean that they will have lack of confidence against India.

Korea clinched a superb come-from-back victory against Pakistan to ensure their place in the final, while they held Australia to a 2-2 draw. Korea’s Nam Hyun Woo is currently the leading scorer in the tournament with 9 goals to his credit.

Here are the squads of India and South Korea:

India Squad

Rajpal Singh (captain), Amit Prabhakar, Rupinder Pal Singh, Arjun Halappa, Prabohd Tirkey, Dhananjay Mahdik, Sardar Singh, Mandip Antil, Ravi Pal, Sarvanjit Singh, Bharat Chetri (GK), Gurbaj Singh, Tushar Khandker, Sreejesh Parattu Raveendran (GK), Vikas Vishnu Pillay, Shivendra Singh, Danish Mujtaba, Bharat.

South Korea Squad

Lee Myung Ho (GK), Lee Seung Il, Ro Jong Hwan, Nam Hyun Woo, Lee Nam Yong, Cho Suk Hoon, Jung Hwan Uk, Yoon Sung Hoon, You Hyo Sik, Yang Soo Hyuk, Jin Kyung Min, Oh Dae Keun, Shin Yong Ho, Hong Eun Seong, Yoo Min Ho, Kim Young Jin, Kim Yong Bae, Lee Seung Hoon

India Reached the Final of Sultan Azlan Shah Cup Hockey 2010

Indian hockey team thrashed Egypt 7-1 on Saturday to ensure their progress to the final of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2010 in Malaysia. With this victory, India acquired 13 points, and thus, leading in the point table. South Korea, who defeated Pakistan 4-2 today, will meet India in the tournament final on 16 May.

Knowing that only a victory can clinch them a place in the final, India did not have a very good start against Egypt. Against an opponent who conceded 26 goals from their previous 5 games in the tournament, India had to wait for 33 minutes for the first goal that came through Dhananjay Mahadik.

Egypt restricted India within a goal in the first half, but their defense broke out at the beginning of the second half when India netted 5 goals in the space of 9 minutes. During this time, Mahadik completed his hat-trick, and Rajpal Singh, Rupinder Pal Singh and Tushar Khandker scored once each for India.

Just 2 minutes off the final whistle, Egypt scored a consolatory goal through Ahmad Abd El Hakim. This was Egypt’s only 4^th goal in the tournament. In the final minute, Savanjit Singh increased India’s lead to 7-1.

Meanwhile, Pakistan failed to make to the final after losing to South Korea 4-2 in another important match of the day, while Australia defeated China 4-0. Korea got into the final with better goal difference leaving behind Australia and Malaysia.

India Lost to Malaysia 5-2 in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup Hockey 2010

Host Malaysia defeated India 5-2 in a very important match of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup Hockey 2010 on Wednesday. India’s defeat by such a big margin came as a big surprise to the Indian fans who were expecting an easy win for India.

A victory could have ensured India’s berth in the final, but the Malaysian players had something different in their mind. With this victory, Malaysia now stands second in the point table with 8 points from 5 games. India is now leading the table with 10 points from the same number of games.

Malaysia dominated over India from the very beginning of the match and had one-goal lead at the half time thanks to a 27^th-minute striker from Mohamed Amin Rahim.

Malaysia took the lead to 3-0 within 6 minutes of the second half thanks to Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin and Mohamed Razie, before India scoring a goal in the 44^th minute.

Amin then scored his second in the 48^th minute and Rizal scored the 5^th goal for Malaysia in the 60^th minute of the match. Ravi Pal scored India’s second goal in the 68^th minutes, but that was too late for the visitors to save the match.

India has a game left in hand against Egypt and they need 2 points to make sure their appearance in the final. For Malaysia, it would not be that easy as they need to win against China and wait for the result of Australia-South Korea match.

Meanwhile, Australia squandered off their 3-goal lead to settle for a 5-5 draw with Pakistan in another match on Wednesday.

The crisis of Indian hockey before world cup 2010

World Cup hockey is going to take place in India next month. The tournament will start on 28^th February 2010 and will finish on March 13, 2010. The condition of Indian national hockey team is not that good and no one is expecting that they will win the tournament or even go to the final. However, there is a bigger problem for the sports at this moment. The players are very unhappy with the management and they have walked out of training camp.

Hockey is the national game of India and in Olympics; India has glorious history in this event. However, in the last two decades or may be in the last three decades, the Indian national hockey team has not been able to get any considerable success. As a result, the popularity of this sport has decreased a lot and now, the bad time has really come.

Shah Rukh Khan recently called on supporting the players. One of the main problems is that the players do not get enough money. There is a lack of sponsorship to hockey.

I really can not see any way out for this crisis at the moment. I know that the players will come back to training or most probably already come back but it won’t make that much difference for world cup 2010.