The ninth edition of the Sultan of Johor Cup started yesterday on 12th October 2019, where in the very first match of India in the tournament, Indian Junior men’s team defeated Malaysia 4-2 on Saturday.
Sultan of Johor Cup 2019
The scorers from Indian side were Pratap Lakra (19′, 33′), Shilanand Lakra (39′) and Uttam Singh (60′). On the other hand, Muhammad Hassan (8′) and Muhammad Zainudin (9′) notched goals for Malaysia.
The 2019 Sultan of Johor Cup is an international men’s under–21 field hockey tournament which is going on in Malaysia. It started from 12 October 2019 and will carry on till 19 October 2019.
Same as the previous editions, this year too a total of six teams are competing for the title. All the teams that appeared in the 2018 edition returned for the 2019 tournament such as India, Australia, Great Britain, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand.
When the match started between India and Malaysia, team Malaysia started the first quarter in an aggressive note. Muhammad Hassan as well as Muhammad Zainudin found the back of the net in the eighth and ninth minutes individually. Hassan on the other hand put Malaysia ahead with a field goal in advance Zainudin converted a penalty corner.
Later in the second quarter, India got off to a great start as they earned a penalty corner, on the other hand, the Malaysian defense blocked out the Indian attack.
India defeat Malaysia 4-2
Soon, India pulled back through a fantastic penalty stroke by Pratap Lakra and then carried on to be in more aggression and kept looking for openings.
Even in the fourth quarter as well, India continued the attack but the Malaysian defense unit at the same time managed to block out everything that was thrown at them. The home side also tried very hard to fight back through some crucial moves, though, India make sure that they stayed in the lead as they made goal-scoring openings, but was not able to find the back of the net.
India finally got an excellent chance to score their fourth goal when they earned a penalty corner in the very last minutes of the match, but then unluckily the attack was saved by the Malaysian defense. On the other hand, Uttam Singh made a great goal score in the last minute of the match in order to help India walk off the field as winners.
Other than India vs Malaysia match, there were two other matches that were held on 13th October 2019 between Australia vs Japan and Great Britain vs New Zealand, where Australia and Great Britain won the matches by 2–1 and 2–0, respectively.
India is now going to face New Zealand in their next round-robin league-stage match that will held on October 13 against New Zealand.
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