Dhaka: Notwithstanding their poor success rate in converting penalty corners, tournament favourites India dominated proceedings from the start to defeat arch rivals Pakistan 3-1 in a pool encounter of the 10th men’s Asia Cup hockey tournament, here Sunday. This incidentally was India’s sixth victory on the trot against Pakistan
In their earlier group encounters India had beaten Japan (5-1) and Bangladesh (7-1) by emphatic margins. They could have achieved a similar scoreline had they been successful with their penalty corner conversion rate.
Coach Sjoerd Marjine was also at a loss regarding the poor penalty corner conversion rate (India converted one of the seven they earned). “I really can’t say what is going wrong,” Marjine said after the game. “I can only say that we have to do a lot of work in this department.”
Chinglesnsana Singh (17th minute), Ramandeep Singh (44th) and Harmanpreet Singh (45th) scored the goals for India, while Pakistan lone strike came from the stick of Ali Shan in the 49th minute.
By virtue of this win, India finished on top of Pool A with nine points from three games while Pakistan secured second spot with four points. Japan also finished with an identical number of points after defeating hosts Bangladesh 3-1, but, Pakistan qualified for the round robin semifinals on better goal difference (10-5 as against Japan’s 6-8).
After a barren first quarter during which Akashdeep Singh and Ramandeep Singh came close to scoring, the Indians came out hard in the second quarter and took the lead through Chinglesnsana, who slammed home after receiving a fine pass from Akashdeep, operating down the wide right. Three minutes later, Gurjant Singh’s reverse hit from the right flank was just off target.
India replaced Suraj Karkera with Akash Chikte in goal at the halfway mark and the young custodian came up with a superb save in the 40th minute to deny Pakistan.
India secured their first penalty corner soon but Varun Kumar’s grounded flick was wide off the target. However, soon after Ramandeep doubled India’s lead with a neat deflection off Harmanpreet Singh’s fantastic cross from the middle of the pitch.
India extended their lead in the very next minute from their second penalty corner through Harmanpreet.
Press Trust of India