New Zealand Wins Azlan Shah Cup, India Finishes With Bronze

Posted on Jun 3 2012 - 9:49pm by Rohan Nitin Pitre
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New Zealand on Sunday clinched the title of 21st Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament in their maiden final appearance, defeating Argentina 1-0 in the summit clash here. New Zealand’s match-winner came from Andy Hayward, who converted their first penalty corner by beating Argentine goalkeeper Juan Vivaldi with a low shot.

World number seven New Zealand were the third highest ranked team in the tournament, behind Great Britain (number four) and South Korea (number six). Argentina did well to make it to the final after losing their first two matches, but were not able to breach the New Zealand defence led by goalkeeper Kyle Pontifex.

Whereas five-time champions India bounced back from a goal down to beat tournament favourites Great Britain 3-1 and clinch the bronze medal in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, here on Sunday.India vs Great Britain For India, the win over World No.4 Britain would give them the much needed boost ahead of the 2012 London Games. India also took sweet revenge of their 2-3 loss against Britain in the league games.

India pumped in three second half goals from Shivendra Singh (42nd minute), Sandeep Singh (52nd) and Tushar Khandekar (69th) after Ashley Jackson (35th) gave Britain the lead converting a penalty corner just at the stroke of half time.

About the Author

Rohan Pitre is an engineering student from Nashik. He has immense interest in sports and likes analysing matches with his pre and post match reviews. Photography, Travelling and Music take care of his aesthetic sense. He likes reading books (not novels) in his leisure time.

  • Sachin Thakur

    Nice article, but I just feel the need to make two corrections. Firstly, the #4 team is “England” and not “Great Britain” because, for some strange reason, England doesn’t like to associate itself with the remaining constituent countries of the UK when playing sports (except for during the Olympics). Secondly, you have stated that both New Zealand AND South Korea are world #7′s. I just had a look at the rankings and NZ is #7 while South Korea (which has been listed as “Korea” for some reason, although there is NO way it could be anything apart from South Korea) is #6.

  • Rohan Nitin Pitre

    Korea ranking corrected ! As of England being mentioned as Great Britain, that’s what the Azlan Shah official website has called them. And so I went with it :)