IPOH (Malaysia), May 6: Argentina sprang a major surprise on Sunday on the second day of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup when they defeated Australia 1-0 at the Azlan Stadium here.

The win by the Argentines was their first over Australia in 17 years, and it left their coach Sergio Virgil ecstatic.

“This is an important win for us and one that will help our young players to work harder. It is not often you get to beat a team in the mould of Australia. We defeated them last 17 years ago in a four-nation tournament in Australia,” he said.

The hero for the South Americans was Lucas Rossi, who managed to latch on to a penalty corner rebound and score from close range, beating goalkeeper Daniel McPherson in the 48th minute.

That was the only penalty corner of the match for the Argentines.

Australia, the world number two side, on the other hand had numerous chances through their field attempts as well as six penalty corners.

The match was slow-paced as both teams had to endure another day of humid conditions.

The Argentines were happy to restrict the Australians to mainly the midfield and depended on counter attacks to try and score.

Australian forwards Liam De Young, Andrew Smith, Russel Ford, Edward Ockenden, Grant Schubert, Eli Matheson and Matthew Naylor all missed their chances in the D.

Argentine goalkeeper Mariano Chao, at 35 the oldest player in the team, had a great game, saving several goal-bound shots to keep the Australians at bay.

Australian coach Colin Batch said it was not surprising they lost, as all teams at this level can notch a win or two on their day.

“For us it is another lesson to learn. We had command of the game and the chances to get the goals, but the result shows otherwise. I'm disappointed with the result, but performance-wise I think we have managed to gather reasonable data on the players,” he said.

In another Group A match, India beat China 5-4 to keep alive their semi-final hopes. The Indian scorers were Prabhjot Singh, V.R. Raghunath (two), Rajpal Singh and Bimal Lkara, while Yu Yang, Song Yi (two) and Hu Hui Ren scored for the Chinese.

In Group B, host Malaysia defeated Canada 2-0 to put themselves as a semi-final contender in the group. They drew 2-2 on Saturday with Pakistan.

On Sunday, goals by Jiwa Mohan and Mohamed Shahrun Nabil in the 11th and 70th minutes were enough to give them full points from the match. They now have four points from two matches.

Results:

Argentina 1 Australia 0

India 5 China 4

Malaysia 2 Canada 0

—AFP