Asian Hockey Championship: Pakistan, India declared joint winners

MUSCAT: Rain played spoilsport as it forced the much-awaited summit clash between arch-rivals India and Pakistan to be called-off at the Men’s Hockey Asian Champions Trophy here on Sunday. The two teams were declared joint winners of the fifth edition of the continental event. Both India and Pakistan have won the tournament twice before this edition and they will share the honours this time around. Due to downpour, the match was in no position to begin even after the delay of more than an hour from the scheduled start time of 10:40 pm IST, and the tournament director decided to forfeit the final after a discussion with both the coaches of India and Pakistan. Defending champions India were the only undefeated side in the tournament, and have beaten Pakistan 3-1 in the round-robin match on October 20. Earlier, in the third-place playoff, Malaysia defeated Asian Games gold-medallists Japan 3-2 in a shoot-out after the con contest was ended at 2-2 in the regulation time. It was a rematch of the Asiad final and Malaysia were able to take the revenge for the loss in Jakarta.