In a thrilling fast-paced game, Qatar and Oman shared a point each in the opening match of their campaign in the Indoor Asia Cup Hockey at the Aspire Zone yesterday.
Oman eeked out a 4-4 draw after scoring twice in the last five minutes of the game against Qatar, who had finished fourth in the last edition of the championship in 2015 in Kazakhstan.
Shahid Jamal scored the opener for Qatar two minutes from half-time. Mohamed Sohail Mustafa scored the second goal for the hosts to equalise at 2-2 after the Omanis had equalised early in the second half.
Sheraz Ali, scoring from an acute angle on the left flank, took Qatar into the lead, before setting up teammate Sami Ullah Mohamed for Qatar’s fourth.
After putting up a solid defensive game in the first half, which saw goalkeeper Shahzad Ali save a few scorchers, even from close range, the Omanis found gaps to capitalise on.
With a little more than three minutes to go, Oman were awarded a penalty corner, which was duly converted to equalise the scores. While both teams then pushed hard for the winner, but that was not supposed to be.
“It was a tough game. We needed to make full use of all the opportunities that came our way. But that obviously did not happen. If we had converted only half the opportunities, we would have done much much better,” Qatar coach Maggid Abu-Talib said after the game.
“It is always a special game between Oman and Qatar. But if you looked at the game, we had a better game, we had more possession, we had more chances. Anyway, the game gave us a valuable point, and we have to look forward to the next matches.”
Up next for Qatar today is Iran, who opened their title defence with a dominating 11-0 win over Malaysia.
Iran have won all six editions of the tournament that have been hosted so far, going back to 2008.
Yesterday, Malaysia, four-time men’s finalists, were no match for the attacking game from the Iranians, who scored at will.
“It will be an even tougher game tomorrow. And Iran is a far better team than everyone else in the competition.
“But we are not bad, and we have to show in the match tomorrow that we are a team to be respected,” Abu-Talib said.
In Pool B, last edition’s finalists Kazakhstan opened their campaign with a 7-3 win over Chinese Taipei. Kazakhstan will play 2012 finalists Uzbekistan today.
Uzbekistan played out a 1-1 draw with Thailand, who play Chinese Taipei today.
In the women’s side of the competition, defending champions Kazakhstan grabbed their three points, beating North Korea 5-2.
In their next game today, Kazakhstan take on China, who suffered a morale-sapping 15 goal loss at the hands of Malaysia.
Thailand won the first match of the women’s competition 3-1 against Uzbekistan.
In the final women’s game of the day, Malaysia came from two goals down at half time, to score thrice in a 3-3 draw against Uzbekistan.
 
RESULTS
MEN’S INDOOR ASIA CUP
Kazakhstan     7     Chinese Taipei     3
Uzbekistan     1     Thailand     1
Iran     11     Malaysia     0
Qatar     4     Oman     4