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| March 27, 2003 | Thursday | Muharram 23, 1424 |
Pakistan in three-way tie for final
IPOH (Malaysia), March 26: Former world champions Pakistan and New Zealand joined defending champions Germany in a three-way fight to reach the final of the 12th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup after winning their respective matches here on Wednesday.
Pakistan showed their supremacy to beat Malaysia 3-1, taking revenge for their defeat against the home side in the Asian Games bronze medal match in Busan last year.
Defeat left Malaysia out of the running and they now wrap up their campaign against world champions Germany tomorrow.
New Zealand meanwhile staved off a late challenge from Asian champions South Korea before winning 3-2. New Zealand, Pakistan and Germany have six points each but Germany has one match in hand.
The top two teams in the five-nation tournament will play in the final on Sunday.
In the Pakistan-Malaysia clash, penalty corner specialist Sohail Abbas needed just three minutes to give the 1999 and 2000 winners a perfect start.
They, however, had to wait until the 33th minute for the second goal from a similar move finished off by Ali Raza.
The young Malaysian side never gave up and finally cracked Pakistan’s defence in the 47th minute from a fast counter-attack.
Norazlan Rahim slammed in from a close range to make it 1-2. Barely a minute later, Malaysia could have made it 2-2 but Shaiful Azli Abdul Rahman’s powerful shot hit the post with goalkeeper Ahmad Alam well beaten.
Instead Pakistan hit back and made the game safe when Sohail added another goal on 57 minutes from a penalty corner.
New Zealand, who replaced Australia in the tournament, buried their opening match horror show to win their second consecutive game.
It was an impressive about term from New Zealand, who have recovered well after being thrashed 6-1 by Pakistan in their opening match.
Bevan Hari stunned the Koreans with an early goal for New Zealand after barely a minute, but the Koreans came back to level on 16 minutes through Seo Jong-Ho’s reverse flick.
The score remained at 1-1 until the 35th minute but New Zealand showed their class, netting two goals in a space of six minutes to take control of the game.
Jang Jong-Hyun pulled one back for Korea two minutes from time but it was too little too late.—AFP
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