India finished the league stages of the Asian Champions Trophy with a hard-fought 2-1 win over hosts Malaysia to maintain an unbeaten record from their five matches. This victory also means they stay in top spot of the points table at the end of the round robin stage and will face South Korea - who finished fourth - in the semi finals on Saturday.Here are five takeaways from the first five matches that India will need to keep in mind going into the big weekend games.This team means businessBefore heading off to Kuantan, both head coach Roelant Oltmans and captain PR Sreejesh had talked about the importance of results in the wake of the quarterfinal exit at the 2016 Olympics. India have shown that intent all the way through the Asian Champions Trophy, into its fourth edition this time. The last time the event was held was in 2013, India had fielded their junior team as a plan to give them more exposure ahead of the Junior World Cup later that year in New Delhi. Theres another such event in Lucknow in a little over a month, but the Indian team selection indicated that the 6th-ranked Indians have come with a view to go for the title and nothing less.Theyre scoring goals, sometimes at willOne of the weaknesses of the Indian team at the Rio Olympics had been their wastefulness in open play, especially in their critical encounter against Belgium in the knockout stages. 25 goals in five matches indicate that there has been an improvement on that count, even though 19 of the goals came in two facile wins over Japan and China. There have been eight different scorers, and while Rupinder Pal Singh has led the scoring charts with his 10 goals, it has been refreshing to see the Indian players find goals from across the attacking line, and even defensive players like Jasjit Singh Kular and Pardeep Mor contribute to the scoresheet.What if Sreejesh isnt there? has an answer at lastSreejesh injured his ankle in the game against Pakistan but played through the pain to see India through to a 3-2 win and hasnt been seen in goal since. This has opened up the opportunity for 24-year-old Akash Chikte, who looked impressive against China and was even better against Malaysia. He did concede a penalty corner goal to Razie Rahim, but he was on the money off the other chances that fell the home sides way. His decision-making was quick, and a point-blank range effort off Malaysian striker Joel van Huizen in the first half will take some beating as the save of the tournament. This is a huge step, because India have not tried a lot of reserve goalkeepers in recent matches. In Chikte they seem to have a long-term prospect ready.Younger forwards are staking a claimIf India seemed over-reliant on SV Sunils creativity in Rio during the Olympics, this tournament has seen the likes of Talwinder Singh, Lalit Upadhyay and Affan Yousuf enhance their reputation as long-term prospects. India have shown a lot of tactical flexibility under Oltmans in the course of one week, with Sardar Singh occupying positions as varied as centre-half as well as the centre of midfield. The younger players like Upadhyay, Affan and Mor have also spent a lot of time across different positions and looked to feed Akashdeep Singh and Ramandeep Singh whenever possible.Discipline has been the keyIronically, the only blemish in their last league match was in an area where India had been exceptional across the first four, in which India conceded only two green cards, and none in the high-intensity game against Pakistan. Against Malaysia, however, Nikkin Thimmaiah and Birendra Lakra had to sit out for two minutes each inside the first half after being shown green cards. And they nearly gave Malaysia an irreversible advantage when Surender Kumar barged into Azri Hassan in the 49th minute and was shown a yellow and sent off for 10 minutes, an error for which he stands suspended for the next two matches. They managed to not just survive that setback, but even scored the winner through a Rupinder Pal drag flick in those last 10 minutes. 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Thomas Meunier Jersey . -- Brandon Jennings made the most of his first game with the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night. Custom Belgium Jerseys .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again. As history begins to repeat itself, it is the familiarity that connects the dots. On the morning of the second day of the Test at Hagley Oval, as all the work that Pakistans openers had done was frittered away, it was that feeling of familiarity that was most obvious.For Pakistanis of a certain generation, tours to the antipodes are tied in to memories that are easily evoked - of godforsaken hours on wintry nights, of hope springing eternal, and of batsmen struggling to cope with alien conditions. It is often said that Pakistans worship of bowling, particularly the faster kind, has to do with the number of great fast bowlers the country has produced. But at times like this, one often feels that its the fact that the bowlers have delivered great wins in spite of the incompetence of the batsmen that leads to them being treated as higher beings.Pakistan havent lost a Test series to New Zealand in three decades. Even their last series loss there came about in a match that Wasim Akram got his first ten-for in, in the great tradition of bowlers trying to cover up for the incompetence of batsmen.Despite this record, its not as if Pakistani batsmen have conquered New Zealand. Pakistan went to New Zealand three times in the 1990s: in each instance, in their first Test innings of the tour, they were bowled out for under 220. Across the Tasman, where Pakistan will go in a fortnights time, their record is worse: in their first Test innings on five of their last eight tours to Australia, they have been bowled out for under 180.It was supposed to be different this time around - the success of Pakistani batsmen over the last three years, including on the tour to England, had promised more. But the days leading up to this tour will have set the alarm bells ringing. Pakistan lost a Test to West Indies, and the explanations for that seemed to raise more questions than answers. The first was that the team already had their minds on the series to come. The second was that mental and physical fatigue was a factor, as there had been just two weeks between a three-month long tour of England and the six weeks of the West Indies series in the UAE - which, despite its familiarity, still is a tour away from home for the players - and that this had affected them. The fact that these explanations came from the coach, Mickey Arthur, seemed to raise questions about his own performance, for arent these the things that he is supposed to be in control of? The final explanation, as seems to have been the case in every home series over the past couple of years, was that Pakistan didnt get the pitches they wanted (Arthur, in fact, referenced how Pakistan ought to be able to get the sort of pitches Bangladesh or India have for their home Tests), which again raises questions about the board and the team management, and what control they have over these home Tests.As the excuses piled up, and then Pakistans only warm-up game was wwashed out, the writing seemed to be on the wall.dddddddddddd The last time Pakistan had a difficult away tour without any real preparation, they were bowled out for 49 by South Africa in their first innings there. Yet it wasnt in the first innings that Pakistan lost this Test match in New Zealand. Top-order collapses, as mentioned earlier, have always been a part of Pakistans away tours. What they lacked here was a failure to learn from the first innings. Having seen their approach to prolonging innings without shifting gears fail in the first innings, Pakistan doubled down on it in the second. Australia had just shown why even the opposite of doing what Pakistan did can fail. If there is any lesson to learn from this, or from this year in general, its that extremism towards any single approach is not exactly ideal.At least that is something Pakistan can work upon, even if they will badly miss Misbah-ul-Haq in the middle order. What they cant work on - and this is something that continues to affect them - is their tail.As pitches have in general gone from the homogenisation of the last decade to getting back to their true selves over the past few years, home teams have become more dominant, but there has also been another trend: the strength of teams lower-order batting can make or break games. Englands successes over the past 12 months might have more to do with their lower order than their middle order, for instance. Australias decline from the heights of the 2013-14 Ashes has a lot to do with their lower orders failings too.This year has been seen as an improvement for Pakistans tail - the Oval Test being held up as an example. Yet despite that match, and despite Sohail Khans efforts in New Zealand, Pakistan are one of only three teams whose last four batsmen (Nos. 8-11) have averaged under 15 this year. (This is still an upgrade on the rest of the decade, where Pakistan have competed with Zimbabwe for the wooden spoon.)And yet, for all these problems, Pakistan have rarely had it this good. In the history of the country, only four times have they gone more than five Test series without losing one, only three times have they done so with a streak as long as seven series. The first of those three was from 1985 to 1989, when Pakistan went ten series without losing, as Javed and Imran built the greatest team in Pakistans history. That streak ended on a tour down under, where Pakistans top five averaged 25 at a combined run rate of under 2.3. The second streak followed the spot-fixing scandal, and ended with a series where Misbah was banned from a Test because of slow over rates. The third is right now, Pakistan havent lost a series in seven - but with Misbah missing and the batsmen following the template of their ancestors, history might be ready to repeat itself. ' ' '