Asian Games Women’s hockey: Sangita Kumari hits hat-trick as India clean Singapore 13-0 in opener

Young striker Sangita Kumari slammed a hat-trick as a dominant Indian girls’s hockey crew scored targets at will to thrash lowly Singapore 13-0 in its opening Pool A match on the Asian Games right here on Wednesday.

While the Indians pumped in as many as eight targets within the first two quarters, the Singaporeans did present some resistance after the midway break as they conceded simply 5 targets. Sangita (twenty third, forty seventh, 56th) scored thrice, whereas Navneet Kaur discovered the web twice within the 14th minute.

Udita (sixth), Sushila Chanu (eighth), Deepika (eleventh), Deep Grace Ekka (seventeenth), Neha (nineteenth), Salima Tete (thirty fifth), Monika (52nd) and Vandana Katariya (56th) had been the opposite purpose scorers.

India will tackle Malaysia of their subsequent pool match on Friday.

“It was a good performance, we are happy with the result. The young girls complemented the seniors well. It made our job easy,” skipper Savita stated after the match.

“We are taking match-by-match here. Our next focus is on Malaysia, we have a day gap in which we will prepare and study Malaysia’s game. We will just focus on our plans.

“There can be Korea in our pool and they’re an excellent crew however we’ll attempt to win and prime the pool. Our mindset is correct, everyone is aware of why they’re right here. Our goal is to qualify (for the Olympics) immediately,” she added.

The gulf between India and Singapore was evident because the Savita Punia-led facet mounted assault after assault to attain eight targets within the opening two quarters.

The Indians’ relentless assaults resulted in a heap of penalty corners and so they managed to transform 5 of them. India took the lead within the sixth minute when Udita scored from a penalty nook with a slap shot. Two minutes later, they had been awarded a penalty stroke and Sushila made no mistake.

Penalty corners got here thick and quick for the Indians and Deepika tripled the lead with an ideal flick. Navneet scored two fast targets a minute from the primary quarter — first from a penalty nook after which a discipline purpose seconds later. Navneet snatched the ball from a defender after which dodged previous the Singapore goalkeeper — with wonderful stick work to push the ball in.

Deep Grace then joined the get together scoring with a slap shot from a penalty nook earlier than Sangita scored a wonderful discipline purpose after one-two with Lalremsiami. Neha then transformed a penalty nook to enter the half-time with a wholesome 8-0 lead. The Indians continued in the identical development after the change of ends and saved up the stress on Singapore’s defence with steady assaults.

The Singaporeans confirmed some battle in protection within the final two quarters however nonetheless, India managed to pump in 5 extra targets to make an ideal begin to their marketing campaign.

Published On:

Sep 27, 2023