India thrash Bangla black and blue

Dhaka, October 14
Favourites India produced yet another clinical performance to maul minnows Bangladesh 7-0, registering their second consecutive win at the men’s Asia Cup hockey tournament here today. India had beaten Japan 5-1 in their opening encounter.
Ranked 6th in the world, India proved too good for the hosts, controlling the proceedings from the start to the finish. India scored five goals in the first two quarters while the other two came after the change of ends. Gurjant Singh (7th minute), Akashdeep Singh (10th), Lalit Upadhyay (13th), Amit Rohidas (20th), Harmanpreet Singh (28th, 47th) and Ramandeep Singh (46th) scored for India.
Though India dominated the match, the poor penalty-corner conversion would give some headache to chief coach Sjoerd Marijne. India won as many as 13 short corners in the match, but managed to convert just two. Nevertheless, it didn’t alter the course of the match in the least.
India drew first blood in the seventh minute when Gurjant deflected in a pass from Rohidas. Three minutes later, Akashdeep made it 2-0, pushing a pass from Sunil into the net. In another three minutes, Lalit Upadhyay sounded the board to make it 3-0. Rohidas, who was lurking inside the striking circle, made it 4-0 by deflecting in Gurjant’s cross from the right flank. At this stage, Indian won four back-to-back penalty corners but failed to convert any of them.
Two minutes from half time, India were awarded a penalty stroke and Harmanpreet stepped up to score his first goal of the day as the Manpreet Singh-led side went into the breather with a comfortable 5-0 lead.
Soon after the resumption of play, India got three more penalty corners, only to see all of them go waste. India finally converted one when Ramandeep, two minutes into the final quarter, scored with a variation to make it 6-0. The Indians got four more penalty corners, the third of which was converted by Harmanpreet with a powerful flick to the top-right of the goal. Meanwhile, Japan held Pakistan to a 2-2 draw in the other Pool A match. India lead the pool with six points from two wins and will next play arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday.