Asia Cup | Indians put 15 past hapless Kazakhs; China holds Japan, enters Super 4s

A goal-fest was expected and it was duly delivered by the Indian men’s hockey team in its final Asia Cup Pool-A outing against Kazakhstan, winning 15-0 at the Rajgir Sports Complex here on Monday.

After two tough matches, India had an easy outing against the 81st-ranked minnow and the host took full advantage of the occasion, starting from the very beginning and continuing till the very end to top the pool. Abhishek started the scoring in the fifth minute, unmarked and all alone at the top of the Kazakh circle to slam home a reverse hit, and completed it in the 59th.

India went into the first break 3-0 up, and by half-time it was 7-0, including three penalty corner conversions by three different players. In between Kazakhstan, the lowest-ranked side in the competition, also managed to earn two PCs but to no effect.

Playing its first match of the tournament in comparatively cooler if equally humid evening conditions under lights, India barely broke a sweat ahead of its Super 4s clash against defending champion Korea.

In the other Pool-A match, China completed the Super 4s line-up after a hard-fought draw with Japan to be tied on points but edging ahead to second spot on goal difference.

It was the first draw of the tournament and while China started with its usual pace and went 2-0 ahead, Japan clawed back in to the game in the second half. The last 10 minutes were all about Japan trying desperately to find the winner with waves of attack but China parked the bus in its circle with some brilliant defence to deny it.

Earlier in Pool-B, Akhimullah Anuar struck five times as Malaysia thrashed Chinese Taipei 15-0 to remain unbeaten on top and was joined by Korea, who beat Bangladesh 5-1, in Super 4s.

The results: Pool-A: China 2 (Changliang Lin 11, Yuanlin Lu 25) drew with Japan 2 (Kazumasa Matsumoto 28, 51); India 15 (Abhishek 5, 8, 20, 59, Sukhjeet Singh 15, 32, 38, Jugraj Singh 24, 31, 47, Harmanpreet Singh 26, Amit Rohidas 29, Rajinder Singh 32, Sanjay 54, Dilpreet Singh 55) bt Kazakhstan 0.

Pool-B: Korea 5 (Dain Son 9, 11, Seungwoo Lee 16, Seyong Oh 22, Jihun Yang 60) bt Bangladesh 1 (Shohanur Sobuj 22); Malaysia 15 (Akhimullah Anuar 10, 20, 29, 45, 56, Ashran Hamsani 8, 15, 32, 54, Norsyafiq Sumantri 20, 40, 60, Abu Kamal Azrai 22, Andywalfian Jeffrynus 24, Aiman Rozemi 32) bt Chinese Taipei 0.