India thrashed China 9-0 to stay in the hunt for top spot in the round-robin league competition of the fourth Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament here today.
Akashdeep Singh, Yousuf Affan and Jasjit Singh Kumar scored three goals each as India steamrolled the Chinese defence. The Indians were looking to equal their 10-goal feat against Japan in this tournament when the hooter ended the contest.
Rupinder Pal Singh, captaining India in this contest, Nikkin Thimmaiah and Lalit Upadhyay also made entries in the score-sheet as India boosted their points tally to 10 from four matches, one of which was drawn.
India will take on hosts Malaysia tomorrow with both teams in contention for top spot in the round-robin league standings. Malaysia have nine points from three successive victories.
India went into this game without ace goalkeeper P R Sreejesh, who was seen wearing a brace on his left ankle. This paved the way for the coaches to give for a full game to goalkeeper Akash Chikte, who did well to ward off two penalty corner shots in a game otherwise played in the Chinese territory.
Akashdeep opened the Indian account in the ninth minute when he intercepted a back-pass among Chinese defenders and beat goalkeeper Wang Hong Yu with a shot from the top of the circle that went into the net.
Akashdeep was also in the picture for India’s second goal in the 18th minute as he squared the ball to unmarked Affan in a brisk raid. Affan sent a well-directed push into the boards.
Jasjit swapped passes with Talwinder Singh in the scoring zone before scoring with a fine reverse shot that wrong-footed the custodian in the 22nd minute before Rupinder converted the first penalty corner three minutes later to give India a 4-0 lead at half-time.
India’s highest goal-getter with eight penalty corner conversions in this tournament, Rupinder is also the highest scorer of the tournament so far.
Rupinder also sent the second Indian penalty corner into the net, but the goal was cancelled on video review sought by the Chinese team.
India’s victory against an unfriendly neighbour prompted Twitter users to take potshots at China with sarcastic tweets as ‘China 9-0’ soon became a top trend on the microblogging site.
Here are some comments;
India beats China 9-0 to reach Semifinal,,?
चाइनीज़ प्लेयर्स ने हार कि वजह पूछने पर बताया कि..
उन्हें मिली हॉकी स्टिक "Made in China" थी?? pic.twitter.com/z9BlY46mmo— Bollywood Hot Videos (@BollywoodVDO) October 25, 2016
"China 9-0" china under surgical strike 😉 😛 well played India 🙂
— Manish (@Manish_chandra0) October 25, 2016
China 9-0 pic.twitter.com/6YpbEDL1Ts
— zikzak (@chowkidar_zik) October 25, 2016
https://twitter.com/AjayAjayshank/status/790963064812306434
India demolishing China 9-0 in hockey right now! Wish all India-China encounters end like this!
— Vikram Chandra (@vikramchandra) October 25, 2016
India beat China 9-0 to seal Asian Champions Trophy semi-final spot
Chinese players have complained that the Hockey stick was Made in China pic.twitter.com/QHARyZPzAL— e^?️? (@simplyirfan) October 25, 2016
India beats China 9-0.
Chinese players like, "Our waranty ends after 15 min. The other 8 goals were after the warranty period gets over."— The Joker (@cooljalz1808) October 25, 2016