A ruthless India women’s hockey team mauled Kazakhstan 21-0 to record its successive victories at the Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta on Tuesday.
As many as four Indian players scored hat-tricks, while another 10 got their name on the score sheet as it rained goals in almost every three minutes against the frail opposition in their second Pool B match at the GBK Hockey Field. The victory was also India’s second-biggest win at the Asian Games, just one goal shy of the all-time Asian record of 22-0, which India had achieved by beating Hong Kong in the 1982 Asiad.
Navneet Kaur (11th, 12th 16th 48th and 48th) top-scored with five goals while Drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur, who had smashed a hat-trick in the 8-0 routing of Indonesia in their opening encounter, netted four times. He scored in the 8th 36th, 44th and 52nd minutes).
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Among the other goal-scorers Lalremsiami (9th, 19th, 29th) and Vandana Katariya (29th, 37th, and 52nd) scored thrice. While, Navjot Kaur (16th and 54th), Lilima Minz (38th and 44th), Neha Goyal (10th), Udita (34th), Deep Grace Ekka (43rd) and Monika (55th) hit the others goals.
Playing as the highest ranked team in the competition, India who won a bronze in the 2012 edition required just eight minutes to open the scoring, when Gurjit hit a low and powerful shot past the Kazakhstan goalie.
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A minute later, India scored for the second time after Lalremsiami got to the end of a Lilima cross. Navneet followed with three back-to-back goals making it 5-0 for India within the first 16 minutes.
Then Lalremsiami and Navjot scored within seconds of each other, the former scoring from the game’s first penalty corner. India was already 8-0 up before the second quarter when Vandana scored with a powerful shot before Lalremsiami completed her hat-trick, with still one minute to play before the half-time.
The next half-hour period of two quarters saw India score 12 goals to round-off a comfortable victory.