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Malaysia beat India 4-1

Sportalasia

Malaysia carved out a lame 4-1 win over minnows India in a Thomas Cup Blue Group match to enhance their chances of making it to the semi-final.

The win was nothing to shout about as the manner in which the Malaysian men performed still rankled the home fans. The Malaysians played no better than the way they played the South Koreans last Friday.

Wong Choong Hann came in first against Gopichand Pullela. But it was the Indian who got the 14th point first, gleefully accepting Choong Hann's repeated mistakes.

However, Choong Hann caught up to draw level and raced to win 17-14. In the second game it was Gopichand again reached 14 first, mainly through his crafty wristwork which caught Choong Hann on the wrong foot many a times.

The Malaysian drew level but this time around, Gopichand took the game at 17-14.

But the long battle eventually took its toll and Gopichand, who had just recovered from typhoid, lacked fitness and was virtually crawling in the third match. Choong Hann took the rubber game easily at 15-1.

Then came Lee Wan Wah-Choong Tan Fook. They looked too over-confident against India's first doubles pair Markose Bristow-Vijaydeep Singh and lost the first game 7©15.

Maybe the Malaysian pair got a little distracted by Vijaydeep Singh who despite his bulky frame played very well.

However, the Malaysian pair took the next two games winning 15-2, 15-1 to put Malaysia 2-0 up.

Then Malaysia introduced Yong Hock Kin in the second singles. After winning the first game 15-9 against Nikhil Kanetkar, Hock Kin gave a scratchy performance in the second but held on to win 17-14 to give Malaysia the winning point.

Exprienced pair Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock gave a no nonsense performance to tear apart India's George Thomas-Jaseel Ismail 15-6, 15-3.

India's only point came through Siddharth Jain in the third singles match against Roslin Hashim. The Indian won the first game 15-10 and lost the second 3-15.

Siddarth was leading 7-3 in the rubber game when Roslin complained of pain in his elbow and retired.

Indian team coach S.M. Ariff said he was very happy with what his boys achieved today.

"This is what we have to show after reading about a thrashing we are going to get from the Malaysians. The score was 4-1 I admit, but the nett scores were close," he said.

Malaysian team manager Datuk Al Amin Majid said now that Korea had defeated Denmark, there's nothing to do but hope the Malaysian men beat Denmark on Tuesday.

"Our singles players are wasting to many points and are taking too much time to settle down," he said.

Courtsey: www.badmintonasia.com