India beat Australia, in covering more distance

Doha, Jan 14 (PTI) India might have lost 0-4 to Australiain their opening Asian Cup match here but they won in onedepartment -- they outran their formidable opponents.

Indian players ran a total of 118.49 kilometres at anaverage speed of 6.91 km per hour while the Australianscovered 115.00 kms at an average speed of 6.71 km/hr.

Captain and central midfielder Climax Lawrence ran themaximum distance of 12.53 km among the Indians while leftwinger Syead Rahim Nabi and right back Surkumar Singh weresecond and third with 11.95 km and 10.84 km respectively inthe 90 minutes they played.

Luke Wilkshire ran most among the Australians by covering11.46km while another defender David Carney and midfielderJason Culina were second and third with 11.21km and 11.14kmrespectively in the Group C match played on January 10 at AlSaad Stadium.

The ball possession percentage was, however,overwhelmingly in favour of Australia at 65 per cent asagainst India, according to statistics released by the AsianFootball Confederation under a new STATS Sport VU playertracking technology.

Australia also had far more number of shots at goals withnine on target out of 28 they got.

Tim Cahill had six shots in the match and the two ontarget hit the nets.

India, on the other hand, had seven shots with only twoof them on target -- one each by N P Pradeep and SunilChhetri.

Australia got 12 corner kicks in the match while Indiagot none.