The victorious march of the Indian hockey team in the Hero Asian Champions Trophy continues. On Monday, they outplayed South Korea 4-1 in the semi-finals to cruise to the final. India are the defending champions as well.

Skipper Harmanpreet Singh’s sublime form too continued as he struck two
goals (19th, 45th) against the Koreans. India’s other two goals came through Uttam Singh (13th minute) and Jarmanpreet Singh (32nd). Korea’s lone goal came from through Yang Jihun’s penalty corner conversion in the 33rd minute.

India will take on hosts China in Tuesday’s final. Earlier in the day, China defeated Pakistan 2-0 via shoot-out in the first semi-final after the two teams finished 1-1 at the end of regulation 60 minutes.

India and Korea during the Asian Champions Trophy semi-final on Monday, in a picture shared on X X

In the previous league-stage encounter between the two sides, India had prevailed 3-0 over China.

Pakistan and Korea will face off in the third-place classification match which will also be played on Tuesday.

In the fifth-sixth place classification match, Japan beat Malaysia 4-2 in a shootout following a 4-4 stalemate in normal time.

The Indians, as has been the trend in the tournament, started on the offensive and tested the Korean defence with persistent attacks from the word go. The Koreans, on the other hand, looked happy to sit back and defend and rely on sporadic counterattacks.

India’s attacking intent paid off in the 13th minute when Uttam positioned himself at the right place at the right time to tap in Araijeet Singh Hundal’s supply from the right.

Four minutes into the second quarter, India secured their first penalty corner and Harmanpreet scored his sixth goal of the tournament to hand his side a 2-0 lead.

India continued in the same vein after the change of ends and extended their lead two minutes into the third quarter. A brilliant scoop from Sumit from the right found Jarmanpreet just outside the circle on the left flank and the latter neatly collected the ball and took a step or two to get inside the circle and slap the ball into the Korean goal.

But Korea pulled one back a minute later from a penalty corner through the tournament’s top-scorer Yang Jihun.

The goal hardly bothered the Indians as they continued their attacking game and dominated the share of exchanges.

With a second left for the third quarter, India secured another penalty corner when Korean goalkeeper Jaehan was shown the yellow card for handling the ball outside the circle, and Harmanpreet made no mistake to extend the lead.