Singapore
fell to a shock 3-2 defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka in the World League First
Round at the Kuantan Hockey Stadium.
It
was their second consecutive defeat, having lost badly 11-0 at the hands of
hosts Malaysia the previous night.
They
will now have to defeat Kazakhstan in their final match on Sunday to have any
hopes of taking one of the two berths into the second round available to teams
participating in this tournament.
Malaysia
take on Kazakhstan in a later match and a win will give them one of the two
spots available while Kazakhstan need to avoid a heavy defeat in the event they
lose to Singapore.
The
hosts will play Sri Lanka, who also have an outside chance if they can hold or
defeat Malaysia when they play on Sunday night.
Sri
Lanka opened the scoring in the 4th minute through Buddika Yapa
Gunarathna and that jolted Singapore into action as they started dictating
play.
And
Singapore were duly rewarded when Nursabrina Banuh M. Gofar scored the
equaliser in the 15th minute.
Having
held a grip of the match, Singapore took the lead three minutes before the
halft-time with Nursabarina nothing her second, her shot on the right sailing
past a sea of legs to deceive Sri Lanka custodian Erandi Keerthirathna.
It
took Sri Lanka only a minute upon resumption of play to draw level when Buddika
managed to outwith the Singaporean defence and put the ball past Singapore
keeper Cookie Tan Koon Khim.
Then
in the 50th minute came what was the tournament’s own goal as a shot
by Sri Lanka’s Muthukuttige Prarthana from the left was left by Cookie but
umpire Nur Hafizah Azman adjudged the ball was deflected by a Singaporean stick
in the semi circle.
Nur
Hafizah consulted fellow umpire Nirmala Dagar from India upon protests from the
Singaporean players but the decision stood and Sri Lanka were ahead 3-2.
Try
as they did, Singapore could not find the equaliser.
