India’s Salima in action against Singapore during the women’s hockey match at the 19th Asian Games, in Hangzhou, China, on September 27, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Young striker Sangita Kumari slammed a hat-trick as a dominant Indian women’s hockey team scored goals at will to thrash lowly Singapore 13-0 in its opening Pool A match at the Asian Games here on Wednesday.
While the Indians pumped in as many as eight goals in the first two quarters, the Singaporeans did show some resistance after the halfway break as they conceded just five goals.
Sangita (23rd, 47th, 56th) scored thrice, while Navneet Kaur found the net twice in the 14th minute.
Udita (6th), Sushila Chanu (8th), Deepika (11th), Deep Grace Ekka (17th), Neha (19th), Salima Tete (35th), Monika (52nd) and Vandana Katariya (56th) were the other goal scorers.
India will take on Malaysia in their next pool match on Friday.
“It was a good performance, we are happy with the result. The young girls complemented the seniors well. It made our job easy,” skipper Savita said after the match. “We are taking match-by-match here. Our next focus is on Malaysia, we have ode day gap in which we will prepare and study Malaysia’s game. We will just focus on our plans.
“There is also Korea in our pool and they are a very good team but we will try to win and top the pool. Our mindset is right, everybody knows why they are here. Our target is to qualify (for Olympics) directly,” she added.
The gulf between India and Singapore was evident as the Savita Punia-led side mounted attack after attack to score eight goals in the opening two quarters.
The Indians’ relentless attacks resulted in a heap of penalty corners and they managed to convert five of them.
India took the lead in the sixth minute when Udita scored from a penalty corner with a slap shot. Two minutes later, they were awarded a penalty stroke and Sushila made no mistake.
Penalty corners came thick and fast for the Indians and Deepika tripled the lead with a perfect flick. Navneet scored two quick goals a minute from the first quarter — first from a penalty corner and then a field goal seconds later.
Navneet snatched the ball from a defender and then dodged past the Singapore goalkeepeer — with fine stick work to push the ball in.
Deep Grace then joined the party scoring with a slap shot from a penalty corner before Sangita scored a fine field goal after one-two with Lalremsiami.
Neha then converted a penalty corner to go into the half-time with a healthy 8-0 lead.
The Indians continued in the same trend after the change of ends and kept up the pressure on Singapore’s defence with continuous attacks.
The Singaporeans showed some fight in defence in the last two quarters but still India managed to pump in five more goals to make a perfect start to their campaign.