India dominated Singapore but failed to notch up a win, playing out a 1-1 draw in their FIFA international friendly as part of Hung Thinh Tournament on Saturday.
Ikhsan Fandi put Singapore ahead in the 37th minute when his free-kick from about 25 yards out took a deflection off the Indian wall and beat a diving goalie Gurpreet Singh Sandhu who could lay a hand on the ball but failed to stop it from entering the net.
Six minutes later Ashique Kuruniyan equalised in the 43rd minute off an assist from captain Sunil Chhetri.
Jeakson Singh made an interception in the Singapore half, passed the ball to Chhetri, who put Kuruniyan through on goal. Kuruniyan calmly slotted the ball home with his left-foot beating Singapore goalkeeper and captain Hassan Sunny.
Early in the second half, Anirudh Thapa and Ashique combined to almost score the second goal. Ashique took a powerful shot after Thapa put the ball ahead for him, but goalkeeper Hassan made a timely save.
India were the better side in the match and they failed to convert their chances.
"There are many things that we could have done better. I'm sure the coach will have a talk with us about it. We missed a lot of chances, and maybe we could have defended a little better, but without being too harsh on ourselves, there are a few things that we need to work on," skipper Chettri said after the match.
When asked about the weather in Singapore, Chhetri said, "No excuses from my end about the weather. We were here two days ago, and I must say that the weather is little different here, but it's quite nice. The ground was great. A lot comes down to how we played and we need to do better."
In their earlier match, Singapore had lost 0-4 to hosts Vietnam.
India play Vietnam on Tuesday in their last match of the friendly tournament.
With inputs from PTI