India squandered a golden opportunity to pick up full points and conceded a last-minute goal to draw 1-1 with Japan in its second match at the inaugural Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament here on Sunday.
After the 5-0 win over China in the opener, the match against Japan turned out to be an anti-climax for the Indians.
For India Gurwinder Singh Chandi (22nd minute) scored his second goal of the tournament while Naoto Shiokawa equalised for Japan in the 69th minute.
India now has four points from two matches while the Japanese, who lost their opening encounter 2-3 to South Korea, have one.
India will next play South Korea on Tuesday after a rest day on Monday.
Against Japan, the Indians did all the hard work and should have won by a big margin but for the errors committed by the forward line.
However, it was Japan which started strongly with three forwards raiding the Indian defence but young Rupinder Pal Singh and V. Raghunath held firm.
Upfront, the India forwards did well but lacked cohesion.
They attacked in groups of four-five players both from the middle as well as from the flanks, but lacked coordination inside the Japanese striking circle.
