Kazakhastan qualified for the final of the men’s competition of the Asian Indoor Championship when they defeated Malaysia 4-3 in the semis played in Chonburi.
It was a well deserved win for tKazakhstan who attacked and defended in numbers and played their hearts out despite being two goals down twice in the match.
They will now take on Iran in the final on Sunday.
Malaysia got off to a dream start and in the 4th minute they scored twice with goals from Aminudin Zain and Shafiq Yacob.
The two early goals gave them a tremendous boost in confidence and the Malaysians dominated possession after that.
Kazakhstan were at sea as nothing went right and were prevented from creating chances due to the close marking method adopted by the Malaysians.
However Kazakhstan managed to reduce the deficit in the 16th minute through the effort of Yermek Tashkeyev.
At halftime Malaysia led 2-1 but even they knew that a slender one goal lead was not safe.
And with that in mind, Malaysia made full use of a penalty corner in the 22nd minute with Firdaus Omar converting to give Malaysia a 3-1 advantage.
But Kazakhstan were not giving up and got their second goal in the 27th minute through captain Daulet Uramanov.
And three minutes later Kazakhstan nested the equaliser, once again through Daulet.
Kazakhstan were on fire and they scored the winning goal in the 34th minute, this time Yermek scoring and putting his team into the final.
