CAIRO, Oct 18: Pakistan Juniors lost their third consecutive match when France scored a 1-0 victory in an ill-tempered game in the Akhbar Al-Youm hockey tournament at Cairo Stadium Wednesday night.

The match which saw rough play ended with a red card, six yellow and three green to both sides.

Pakistan have earlier lost to hosts Egypt 2-0, and arch-rivals India 3-0 in the four-nation contest.

During the fast and exciting game, both teams played aggressively but committed many dangerous fouls because of which two French players received injuries.

Pakistan played with nine players for 35 minutes after Syed Abbas Haider was shown a red card in the first half for injuring a French player.

Pakistan did not score because of which they failed to score a single goal.

Pakistan striker Muddasir Abbas squandered an opportunity when he failed to convert a pass and his poor effort was stopped by French goalkeeper.

Later, Pakistan again missed a goal-scoring chance on penalty corner as the hit was declared dangerous.

France took lead in 18th minute when its forwards attacked but Pakistanis committed a foul and France were awarded a penalty stroke. Soyaz Frederics’ converted the stroke.

Pakistan were reduced to nine players after Abbas Haider was given marching orders for hitting a Frenchman with his stick.

In the second half, Pakistan raided but were prevented from scoring. They got four penalty corners but could not convert any of them.

Four yellow and two green cards were shown to French players and Pakistanis got two yellow and a green apart from a red to Abbas.

French coach Bertrand Reynavd criticised umpires for not controlling the Pakistani players, saying his two players had been injured. He said both teams had young players.

Pakistan coach Ayaz Mahmood said his side played the match mostly with nine players and lost by only one goal. The players are improving match by match, he said.

He felt his players performed well but unfortunately could not score goals. He was confident his boys would score goals in the last game against France for third and fourth position Friday.

In another match India beat Egypt 4-0.—PPI