Men's Asian Champions Trophy 2021: Korea recover from a two-goal deficit to hold Indian hockey team to 2-2 draw

South Korea held defending champions India to a 2-2 draw in the Men's Asian Hockey Champions Trophy 2021 in Dhaka on Tuesday (December 14).

India kickstarted their Asian Champions Trophy campaign on a positive note as Lalit Kumar scored the first goal in the 3rd minute. Kumar took control of the ball with sheer elegance to smash it in for a goal at the Maulana Bhasani Hockey Stadium.

India continued their momentum in the second quarter and got the first penalty corner of the match just ahead of half-time. The Korean defense stood tall to avoid going two goals down.

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Nevertheless, India continued their dominance in the second quarter to keep the Koreans away from the Indian net. India enjoyed 55% possession in the first two quarters of the match.

The defending champions started the third quarter of the match in commanding fashion, securing back-to-back PCs. A few minutes later, Harmanpreet Singh struck as India converted their third penalty corner to score their second goal in the 33rd minute.

In the last encounter between these two teams, South Korea managed to play out a draw at the same venue in Dhaka. An unfazed Korean team thus came roaring back into the match soon after.

Korea had three back-to-back penalty corners in the third quarter. Jonghyung Jang grabbed the opportunity to score for his team in the 42nd minute. At the end of Q3, the scoreboard read India 2-1 Korea.

Korea then scored the equalizer in the first minute of the fourth quarter through Kim Sung Hyun.

The Korean side put the Indian defense under pressure, but the 2021 Olympic bronze medallists were not ready to give away the match yet. India bounced back to win a penalty corner but unfortunately failed to convert it into a goal with just 10 minutes left on the clock.

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The match ended with India and South Korea sharing the spoils in a 2-2 draw.

Skipper Manpreet Singh expressed his disappointment after the match but at the same time was confident the team would bounce back.

"Korea were really good today with their defense and their goalkeeper was quite outstanding," he said. "We expected them to give us a hard time and hence it was important we started well. But we couldn't keep up that momentum going into the third and fourth quarter. Nonetheless, this was the first match of the tournament and we surely will bounce back tomorrow against Bangladesh."