MJWC: India begins campaign in style
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| India |
June 30, 2005
Hindu, India
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A hat-trick by penalty corner specialist Sandeep Singh featured India's 4-1 win over Egypt in its opening pool D league match of the Rabobank Junior World Cup hockey tournament for men, here on Wednesday.
Sandeep Singh came up with solid conversions in the fifth, 26th and 56th minutes, while V. Raja sounded the boards from a goalmouth melee in the 60th.
Egypt marked its presence with a 56th minute strike by Mahmoud Elbadry from a penalty corner.
India's first-half performance was lackadaisical. Apart from the two penalty corner conversions by Sandeep Singh, the Indians made little impression. It was just as well that Egypt did not have it in it to apply more pressure than it did, though its defence was fairly well organised.
The Indians enjoyed a distinctly better second-half during which they displayed cohesion and understanding to repeatedly trouble Egypt.
But then, the forwards fumbled in front of the goal and the missed chances pegged the scoreline.
Imran shines
Two penalty corner goals by Imran Muhammad put Pakistan back on track and it pulled off a 3-1 win against Belgium in a pool B league match.
Surprised by a third minute goal by Mike Dewever, Pakistan struggled to make an impression until Imran converted the first of his two penalty corners with a drag-flick in the 28th.
On resumption, Belgium continued to frustrate the Pakistanis with close marking, but Imran came good with yet another drag-flick in the 64th and Arif Muhammad made it 3-1 four minutes from the close.
The results: India (Sandeep Singh 3, V. Raja) beat Egypt 1 (Mahmoud Elbadry); Pakistan 3 (Imran Muhammad 2, Arif Muhammad) beat Belgium 1 (Mike Dewever); Australia 12 (Colin Hennessey 4, Thomas Cleghorn 2, Glenn Turner 2, Jonathan Charlesworth, Iain Davidson, Desmond Abbot, Kiel Brown) beat Chile 0; Korea 11 (scorers not named due to technical problems) beat Mexico 0.
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