Sydney, March 10 A lackluster India were eliminated from the AFC Women's Asian Cup with a 1-3 defeat to Chinese Taipei in their must-win final group stage match here on Tuesday, paying a heavy price for their inability to convert scoring chances.
Despite dominating large portions of the game and creating numerous opportunities, India's failure to convert chances in the final third proved costly, leading to an early exit after they had qualified for the prestigious tournament on merit for the first time.
Manisha Kalyan scored India's lone goal in the 39th minute, unleashing a powerful shot from about 30 yards to find the target.
Chinese Taipei took the lead in the 12th minute when Y H Su slotted the ball into an empty goal post after a poor back pass from Sanju to J W Chen. Indian goalkeeper Elangbam Panthoi Chanu had come off her line hoping to stop Chen, who successfully squared the ball to Su.
India struck back after that, but just before half time (45+9), Y. Y. Hsu's shot hit the upright corner of the post and deflected off Panthoi to enter the India goal.
This followed Pyari Xaxa handling the ball inside the box, and the referee awarded a penalty.
The match was effectively over when Yu-Chin Chen scored Chinese Taipei's third goal in the 77th minute, getting the better of Panthoi after a run down the right side.
India had earlier lost to Vietnam and Japan, and to progress to the next stage of the tournament, the Blue Tigresses needed to beat Chinese Taipei by at least two goals on Tuesday, and Japan needed to defeat Vietnam.
Japan beat Vietnam 4-0.