In-form India clear favourites against Korea in ACT hockey semifinal

Maintaining a clean slate favourites India will fancy their chances when they take on a belowpar but unpredictable Korea in the semifinals of the Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament on MondayParis Olympics bronze medallist India have been in rollicking form in the tournament so far registering five wins out of five Asian Champions Trophy league matches The Harmanpreet Singhled side started their campaign with a 30 win over hosts China and then trounced Japan and Malaysia 51 and 81 respectivelyIndia then beat Korea 31 before eking out a narrow 21 win over archrivals PakistanIt has been a commanding performance from the Indians as they excelled in every department be it forwardline midfield or defenceThe most promising part of Indias performance in the league stages has been the form of the strikersScoring field goals was a major concern in Paris but here the young forwardline comprising Sukhjeet Singh Abhishek Uttam Singh Gurjot Singh Araijeet Singh Hundal and others have exceeded expectationsYoung midfielder Raj Kumar Pal too has shone bright scoring some fine field goals Besides veteran Manpreet Singh vicecaptain Vivek Sagar Prasad and Nilakanta Sharma have excelled in the midfieldThe Indian defence too has performed stoutly conceding just four goals with goalkeepers Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Suraj Karkera not letting the team feel the void left by the retirement of the talismanic PR SreejeshHarmanpreet one of the best dragflickers in the world currently has led from the front and has continued his good form of Paris converting as many as five penalty cornersWhen India struggled for field goals Harmanpreet stood up with his penalty corner conversionsAlso ReadChopra reveals he took part in Diamond League final with fracture in handHarmanpreet also has an able understudy in young Jugraj Singh who is right now the fastest dragflicker in the worldBut a knockout game is a new beginning for any side and the Indians can ill afford to take Korea lightly as they can spring a surprise on their day evidence of which was their lastgasp equaliser to draw 33 against Malaysia and keep their semifinal hopes aliveThe Indian defence will also have to be cautious about not conceding too many penalty corners as in Jihun Yang the tournaments leading scorer with seven goals Korea possesses a potent dragflickerIn the other semifinal of the day Pakistan will take on hosts ChinaThe final is scheduled for TuesdayHarmanpreet warned his teammates against taking Korea lightly despite his sides impressive run so far in this tournamentWe came into this tournament with very little rest or preparations after our Olympic campaign Despite that I am happy with how the team has done to progress into the semifinal stageKorea is a tough team they defend very well and can counter attack fast and skillfully said HarmanpreetTalking about the previous encounter against Pakistan the ace dragflicker said it was good the youngsters have shaken off the nerves of playing against PakistanI think there was a bit of nerves in the match against Pakistan After their goal there was a bit of panic especially with some of the youngsters in the squad playing against them for the first timeWhile the focus tomorrow will be on ourselves it will be interesting to watch how Pakistan to do against China he saidWith agency inputs