India eye Malaysia scalp in quarters

London: Jolted by a loss to the Netherlands, India will look to regroup quickly when they take on Malaysia in the quarter-finals of the Hockey World League Semi-Final, here on Thursday.

After convincing wins over Scotland, Canada and Pakistan, India wasted chances galore to slump to a 1-3 defeat to the Dutch, their first in the tournament.

The loss meant India finished second in Pool B behind the Netherlands, who kept a clean slate.

India only have themselves to blame for the defeat against the Dutch as besides conceding soft goals, they wasted numerous scoring chances.

And come Thursday, Roelant Oltmans’ men cannot afford to repeat the mistakes against Malaysia, who are capable of springing surprises on their day.

“This was our toughest match in the group and we had our chances, too. The good thing is that we came back after being 0-3 down but we didn’t do enough and got punished,” coach Oltmans said on Tuesday.

Going by form and ranking, world no. 6 India start overwhelming favourites against the 14th-placed Malaysians.

While striker Akashdeep Singh has been in superb form with some scintillating goals in the tournament, he will look for support upfront from the likes of S.V. Sunil, Talwinder Singh and Mandeep Singh.

In other quarter-finals, Olympic champions Argentina play Pakistan, the Netherlands take on China and England square off against Canada.