The India men’s hockey team picked up a stunning 16-0 win over the hosts Indonesia in the Asia Cup 2022 at the GBK Sports Complex Hockey Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday to qualify for Super 4s.
Dipsan Tirkey (41’, 42’, 47’, 59’, 59’) starred for India, scoring five goals in the match, while Abharan Sudev (45’, 46’, 55’) also scored a hat-trick in the match. Pawan Rajbhar (10’, 11), SV Sunil (19’, 24’), and Karthi Selvam (40’, 56’) also scored a brace each in the match, while Uttam Singh (14’) and Nilam Sanjeep Xess (20’) scored a goal each to help their team pick up the win.
India needed to win the match by at least a 15-goal margin in order to overtake Pakistan on the basis of more goals scored and make it through to the second stage of the tournament.
Hockey, Asia Cup, India vs Indonesia, as it happened: India win 16-0 to go through to the Super 4
India were relentless from the start, making no secret of their intention to get a big win. But they had to wait till the 10th minute when Pawan Rajbhar’s powerful snapshot broke the deadlock. He scored again a minute later before Uttam Singh scored the third towards the end of the first quarter.
SV Sunil made an impact in the 2nd quarter as he deflected the ball into the Indonesia nets in the 19th minute. A minute later, Nilam Sanjeep Xess added another goal for India from a penalty corner as India extended their lead to 5-0. Sunil deflected the ball into the back of the nets a few minutes later to extend India’s lead to 6-0 before the half-time.
Indonesia goalkeeper Alam Fajar defended well in the third quarter as India continued to search for more goals. Karthi Selvam finally broke the resistance in the 40th minute, getting the seventh goal for India. Dipsan Tirkey then scored the first of his five goals through a drag-flick, then added another through a penalty stroke before Sudev finished the scoring for India in the quarter with the score at 10-0.
In the final 15 minutes, Tirkey scored thrice, Selvam Kathi got on the scoresheet and Sudev completed his hat-trick to hand India a comprehensive win.
India will play their first game of the Super 4s against Japan on Saturday, at 17:00 hrs IST.
The match will be telecast live on Star Sports Select 2 SD + HD and Disney + Hotstar.