The Indian men’s hockey team thrashed Singapore 16-1 in its second Asian Games 2023 Pool A match at the Gongshu Canal Sports Park Stadium in China's Hangzhou on Tuesday (September 26).
Mandeep Singh (12’, 30’, 51’), Lalit Upadhyay (16’), Gurjant Singh (22’), Vivek Sagar Prasad (23’), Harmanpreet Singh (24’, 39’,40’, 42’), Manpreet Singh (37’), Samsher Singh (38’), Abhishek (51’, 52’) and Varun Kumar (55’, 56’) eached netted goals in India’s huge win. Muhammad Zaki Bin Zulkarnain (53’) scored the consolation goal for Singapore.
With this win, the three-time Asian Games champions consolidated their position at the top of the men’s hockey Pool A standings.
The top two from each pool will make the semifinals. The opening encounter of the two teams were also contrasting. While India, placed third in the FIH Rankings, registered a resounding 16-0 win over Uzbekistan, Singapore suffered a massive 11-0 loss to Pakistan.
With their captain Harmanpreet Singh returning to the playing XI after missing the encounter against Uzbekistan, India went on the attack straight away, forcing world No. 49 Singapore to defend deep. India kept making inroads into the opponent’s half and opened the scoring with a field goal.
Mandeep Singh redirected a pass from Gurjant Singh to break the deadlock. The first quarter ended with India leading 1-0.
India doubled their lead minutes into the second quarter. Sukhjeet dribbled inside the Singapore half and passed it to an onrushing Lalit Upadhyay, who turned it in to make it 2-0 for India, Olympics.com reported.
Before Singapore could regroup from the early blows, India extended their lead with four more goals via Gurjant Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Harmanpreet Singh and Mandeep Singh, who scored his second goal of the match in the dying seconds of the first half. The score at the break read 6-0 in India’s favour.
After the break, India continued their domination and scored 10 more while Singapore pulled one back through Muhammad Zaki Bin Zulkarnain. Harmanpreet Singh scored four while Mandeep Singh notched up a hat-trick, his second in as many matches at Hangzhou 2023.
The Indian men’s hockey team will play defending Asian Games champions Japan next on Thursday.