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Sultan Azlan Shah Cup: India in final following a goal rush
India's hockey team defeated Canada 14-3 to reach the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup final, facing unbeaten Belgium next. Jugraj Singh scored four goals.
New Delhi: In a high-scoring encounter, the Indian hockey team outclassed Canada 14-3 in their final league stage match to make the final of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh, Malaysia, on Saturday.
A second-string India will face table-toppers Belgium, who are unbeaten in the six-team tournament, in the final on Sunday. Apart from the win against Canada, the Sanjay-led side beat South Korea (1-0), hosts Malaysia (4-3) and New Zealand (3-2) but had lost to Belgium (2-3) in the round-robin phase.
Drag-flicker Jugraj Singh (12th, 26th, 39th, 50th) starred with four goals, forward Abhishek (57th, 59th), Amit Rohidas (15th, 46th) and Rajinder Singh (10th, 24th) scored a brace each. Dilpreet Singh (25th), Nilakanta Sharma (4th), Selvam Karthi (43rd) and Sanjay (56th) scored a goal each.
Brendan Guraliuk (11th), Matthew Sarmento (35th) and Jyothswaroop Sindhu (55th) sounded the board for Canada.
The match began with an early goal by Nilakanta, followed by a goal by Rajinder, who has been in good nick. It was a thrilling start with Canada responding by creating penalty corners (PC) and even converting from them.
Soon after Rajinder’s goal, Guraliuk converted a fine PC. Two more goals were scored in the following minutes through Jugraj and Rohidas.
This 4-1 lead put India helped India build on their performance in the second quarter. With regulars rested for this tournament, this was an opportunity for young players to get noticed and they did well to hold off pressure from the Canadian defence.
The flurry of goals continued with Rajinder, Dilpreet and Jugraj scoring in the second quarter. India were leading 7-1 when Canada came into the third quarter with slight modifications in their attack that led to a penalty stroke. Sarmento made no mistake in pumping this one into the post.
Jugraj completed his hat-trick when he struck in the third quarter and Karthi scored to extend India’s lead to 9-2.
The final quarter was a formality but this produced the maximum goals, six. It began with Rohidas’s PC followed by Jugraj’s penalty stroke conversion. Both teams continued to trade PCs and Canada ended up scoring from it too with Sidhu’s goal taking the score line to 3-11. Sanjay put his name on the scoresheet from a penalty stroke while Abhishek bagged a double towards the final hooter.
If India win on Sunday, it will be their sixth title having previously won the invitational tournament in 1985, 1991, 1995, 2009 and 2010. This is Belgium’s first ever final.
