Malaysia had reached the final of the recent Asian Games, and were supposed to be India’s biggest test in the tournament, for which they are overwhelming favourites. It seemed so for a large period of the game. In fact, at half time, both teams were level in almost every metric. India needed a big push, and Harmanpreet provided that.

With one round of games left, the four semifinalists have already been decided. Apart from India and Malaysia, Japan and South Korea have also made the last-four stage of the six-team tournament. India will play the Koreans in their last round robin match on Monday, while Malaysia will face Japan.

After Harmanpreet – who was the highest scorer in the tournament going into Sunday’s game – put India ahead in the third minute, they controlled proceedings to a large extent till Akhimullah Anuar capitalised on some lax defending and scored the leveller in the 25th minute.

It was in the later half of the games against Japan and China that India pulled away, and that happened here as well. Harmanpreet answered his team’s call in the 33rd minute to regain the lead and when Sukhjeet scored a field goal 10 minutes later, the writing was on the wall for the Malaysians.

Devoid of pressure, India played freely in the final quarter and when a penalty corner was blocked with a body on the line, Harmanpreet made it 4-1 from the spot. Shello Silverius’s field goal in the last minute was only a consolation.

Forward Abhishek had injured his ankle during warm-up and Fulton said it hurt the balance of the team.

“It’s not easy to lose a striker. You play with four and then your midfield changes. He (Abhishek) didn’t play the whole game, so we played with 15 men,” the India coach said. “Scoreline should have been better. You have to take the chances. Some days it works really well, some days it doesn’t, and today was difficult.”

India is the strongest team in the continent and won the Asiad gold medal at Aichi-Nagoya, beating Malaysia 5-1 in the final. But Fulton said one cannot always expect such one-sided scorelines. “I’d love to say we could win these games 7-0. It doesn’t work like that. But I think we’re playing well. We could be a little bit sharper and take a few more chances in the first half and make the gap a bit bigger,” the South African remarked.

But a fourth win in a row gave him a reason to smile.

“Consistency does matter a lot, and the momentum is good and we’re playing well.”