Hockey Asia Cup daily digest: 3 points vs China, yet India need sharpening in Rajgir

India Today

Hockey Asia Cup 2025: India eked out a 4-3 win over China in their opening match in Rajgir on Friday. While three points have been secured, India have room for improvement. Alan John Jose, reporting from Rajgir, has come up with his review of the opening day.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to ITGD Sports and this is me, Alan John.

00:04So today we are here at Rajgir and the celebration that is the Asia Cup has kickstarted and what a day it was.

00:15It was an absolutely sensational day.

00:18Rajgir turned up in its full force, full tashan as everyone would say.

00:24And we got to see an absolute thrilling fest between India and China.

00:30But before we get to India and China, let's start with the first match, right?

00:34Malaysia versus Bangladesh, a 4-1 match where Malaysia were supposed to, you know, kind of dominate proceedings and they did.

00:42The position was good. They were attacking. They were constantly making circle penetrations.

00:46But it was Bangladesh who got the first goal. And then Malaysia had to bounce back from that.

00:52Next up, we had our defending champions, Korea against Chinese Taipei.

00:58Now, everyone expected the result to be 7-0, but it was not that easy for Korea at first.

01:05Chinese Taipei did give them a strong push in the first quarter at least.

01:11They kept them at bay. And once Korea started scoring, they just did not stop.

01:17It just went on and on. And in the last quarter, third quarter, they were not able to score a lot.

01:23But in the last quarter, they were able to score four goals, which was the biggest margin of win today.

01:31Well, sort of. It is the tide biggest margin of win today.

01:35Because Japan were all over Kazakhstan. And they defeated them, trashed them 7-0.

01:42Japan are in India's group and that is now going to be a big fixture for India going forward, which they will be playing next.

01:51Japan looks to be in very good form, but mostly Kazakhstan's defense was very, very susceptible today.

01:58They made a lot of schoolboy-ish errors, which will get punished against big top teams.

02:05Now, let's come to India versus China. The moment that we have all waited for, right?

02:10The Indian team, it's kind of been an indifferent season for them.

02:14The Hockey Pro League did not go their way. This is their last chance for making it to the World Cup.

02:19So, what was the good? Well, the good was for India, they won 4-3. That is a big, big advantage.

02:27They have got the three points at the end of the day, which the coach and the players will be happy about.

02:33And the other one was to see the penalty corner conversion.

02:36We have got four goals, they are all penalty corners and Captain Harmanpreet stepped up to the plate, scoring a hat-trick, a wonderful hat-trick.

02:46And he got some support from Jugaraj Singh as well.

02:49Now, what are the bad aspects? Like, it's a performance that was a very, very thrilling one.

02:56It was a 4-3 performance.

02:59The bad aspects is that there seems to be still that a little bit of problem from our Hockey Pro League.

03:06If you watch closely, we lost seven of the eight matches and most of them were by one goal.

03:11And it all came down to India letting the lead slip.

03:14That's the same thing that happened here today.

03:16They were 3-1 up, then they let the lead slip.

03:20Then we had Harmanpreet missing a penalty stroke, but he made up for it.

03:23He got the hat-trick at the end of the day, which was the deciding factor.

03:27But going against teams like Korea, Japan, Malaysia, probably India cannot afford this mistake.

03:37And that is one of the main talking points here.

03:39The goalkeeping performance also, Krishan Pathak considered three goals.

03:44He seemed to be a little bit shaky, but obviously I feel that the performances are going to get better as we progress.

03:53Now, India's next opponent is going to be Japan.

03:56And that is going to be in two days' time.

03:58So, we will be here.

04:00We will be covering from Rajgir.

04:03And tomorrow also, we will come with the same episode.

04:07Until then, this is Alan John signing off for India Today's Digital.

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