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Bhubaneswar, Dec 9: Continuing their unbeaten run in the tournament, England and Belgium had to be content with a 1-1 draw Tuesday in a tight last Pool A match of the Champions Trophy here.
Coming after two back-to-back back dominating victories against Australia and Pakistan, England looked all set to trounce the Red Lions. But they were taken in by a surprise from an equally efficient Belgium.
In fact, the Belgium dominated most of the match and had the possession of the ball among themselves for most of the times.
The Red Lions took an early lead in the ninth minute when England failed to mark Amaury Keusters who hit a powerful back-hand from a Tanguy Cosnys pass in the ‘D’, leaving the English goalkeeper George Pinner stunned.
In the next two quarters, England was provided with five penalty corner conversion opportunities but they failed to bank upon them. They even failed to breach the Belgium defence, specially the goalkeeper Vincent Vanash who brilliantly kept his post invincible for the first three quarters.
Vincent convincingly stopped hits from England’s Ollie Willars and new star Sam Ward in the second quarter, whereas Ashley Jackson’s hit from a penalty corner couldn’t bring an equaliser for the Three Lions.
In the aftermath of Jackson’s hit, Ward was fouled providing the English a mouth-watering penalty stroke opportunity in the 30th minute. But Iain Lewers could only find the metalwork, leaving Belgium 1-0 ahead at the half-time.
In the third quarter, Jackson and England captain Barry Middleton were unable to covert penalty corners, while Keusters’ strike hit the crossbar, leaving the Red Lions with a narrow 1-0 lead.
However, England eventually found an equalizer in the last quarter, when Lewers backhand stroke proved unstoppable for Vincent.
And although, Belgium upped the ante in the last few minutes of the game, their efforts never succeeded.
Meanwhile, in the second match of the day, Pakistan continued its poor performance in the tournament as they were trounced by defending Champions Australia 3-0. Jeremy Hayward scored twice through penalty corners in the second and the fourth quarters whereas Jacob Whetton added salt to Pakistan’s wounds by scoring the third goal in the 59th minute of the game.
