Malaysia claimed a 3-2 victory over Canada in an entertaining encounter in the 31st Sultan Azlan Shah Cup International Invitational tournament in Ipoh today.
The win was Malaysia’s first in two matches following a 1-1 draw against New Zealand on Sunday’s opening day match. Sarjit Singh’s Speedy Tigers are now placed second behind the Kiwis in the table standings. with four points. Both teams share four equal points.
The tone was set early with the Speedy Tigers finding the back of the net in the fifth minute through Akhimullah Annuar. The early breakthrough gave the Malaysian the much-needed confidence against the Canadians.
Ranked 20th in the world, Canada kept up the pressure and eventually broke through to score two goals within a frame of four minutes.
Sean Davies (13th) and Matthew Sarmento (17th) extended the score to 2-1 via field goals. However, as fast as the Malaysians lost the lead they made quick recoveries, shaking the Canadian defense with goals from the lethal partnership of Azrai Aizad Abu Kamal and Faizal Saari.
Azrai, with 95 caps, sparked to life with a field goal in the 20th minute, while Faizal, with 304 caps, looked far more threatening throughout the match converted a penalty corner in the 25th minute to give the host a 3-2 lead going into the third quarter.
On a day when rain continued to disrupt the proceedings of matches, the Malaysia-Canada match that was initially slated to start at 6.30pm was not spared either by the rain. It was rescheduled to start at 10.08pm, and yet under a light drizzle. The Belgium-India match that was stopped after just three minutes of action due to rain, will resume tomorrow (Tuesday, Nov 25) at 10.0am at the same venue.
Sarjit’s speedy Tigers continued their domination of the match in the third quarter. Azrai once again found the net with five minutes remaining to the hooter. Canada, however, requested for a video referral and the decision went their way.
MALAYSIA: Sarjit Singh (Coach)
I think when we started off the match we started well, we moved the ball well, we had the chances to increase our lead but we did not take the chances. We allowed Canada to come back, we were very lucky we were not punished from their penalty corners, they had more penalty corners than us but if they would have scored two goals, we would have lost the game.
CANADA: Patrick Tshutshani (Canada)
I think Canada played well. I thought Malaysia also scored really well. We were a bit slow. They put pressure on us and conceded quite early. I thought we slowly brought ourselves back into the game, we pressed a bit higher, we saw that we actually got a bit more reward it’s unfortunate we couldn’t bury our corners but I thought with the added pressure we actually started to crack more.
