CHENNAI, Sept 4: India stormed into the Asia Cup hockey tournament semi-finals with a comfortable 6-0 victory over Bangladesh here on Tuesday.

The defending champions overcame a slow start to assert their supremacy over Bangladesh, scoring five goals in a second-half blitz to post their fourth successive win in the six-team Group B.

The hosts lead the table with 12 points from four matches, followed by 2006 Doha Asian Games champions South Korea (6/3), China (6/3), Bangladesh (6/4), Sri Lanka (0/3) and Thailand (0/3).

Malaysia kept their hopes alive of making it to the last-four with a 2-0 victory over fighting Japan. They now lead the five-team Group A with nine points from three matches, followed by Pakistan (6/3) and Japan (6/3).

Three-time champions Pakistan now need to beat Malaysia in their last match on Wednesday to stay in the contention. Japan will take on winless Singapore in their last game.

India, who posted a 3-2 win over a tough South Korean side on Monday, took more than half-an-hour to breach the Bangladeshi defence, with Ramchandra Raghunath opening the account off a Shivender Singh cross from the right.

Bangladesh, who had done well in the first half to restrict the hosts to just one goal, failed to cope with pressure in the second session and suffered their second defeat in four matches.

India looked a different side after Tushar Khandekar scored the second goal off a Shivender cross from the right. They continued to produce a series of raids and found the target four times in the space of 26 minutes.

Prabhjot Singh, who scored the winner against South Korea, again caught the eye with a brace. Shivender and Raghunath were the other scorers in this session.

Malaysia struck through Ismail Abu and Azlon Misron, but hardly looked safe with their two-goal advantage, as Japan kept putting pressure on their rivals in the second session.

But goalkeeper Kumar Subramaniam came to Malaysia’s rescue with a couple of brilliant saves to deny Japan.

Earlier, Hong Kong finished their league engagements when they twice came from behind to down Singapore 3-2 for their lone win. Both the teams were out of contention for a semi-final spot.

Gurvinder Dillon, Arif Ali and Harinder Singh Bal scored for Hong Kong, while Mohammad Saifulnizam Bin and Mohammad Hazmi Bin found the target for Singapore.—AFP