England have a chance of winning their first Sultan Azlan Shah Cup since 1994 after booking their place in the final at Malaysia's expense with an emphatic 7-2 win on Friday.
Due to Argentina's 3-1 loss to runaway pool leaders Australia in an earlier match, the hosts could've reached the final instead with a win, but England had another idea.
The visitors set the home side back in Ipoh with a three-goal blitz in the final five minutes of the first quarter.
They followed it up with four more unanswered goals in the second half before the Speedy Tigers, who had uncharacteristically missed all their penalty corner attempts, finally made one count in the 51st minute through Tengku Tajuddin.
One minute later, Marhan Jalil added another consolation goal for the Speedy Tigers from open play.
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The win made it the first Sultan Azlan Shah Cup final since 1994 for England, and the second consecutive final for some of their players who were part of last year's winning Great Britain squad.
Argentina, who were in second place, were minutes away from reaching the final but two late goals from Trent Mitton and Aaron Kleinschmidt secured a 3-1 win for the Kookaburras, making it five wins out five.
Kleinschmidt had already scored once to to cancel out Gonzalo Peillat's 21st-minute opener from a penalty corner.
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In another final group match, Ireland finally got their first ever Sultan Azlan Shah Cup win by beating India 3-2.
Lee Cole scored the winning goal for the men in green, participating in the tournament for the first time, after they had to come back from a goal twice against the Asian champions.
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India will have a chance to avenge their loss in Saturday's fifth-place play-off against Ireland, while Malaysia will take on Argentina, whom they beat 2-1 on Tuesday, in a third-place play-off.
Seng Foo Lee
Fri Mar 09 2018
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