Chennai: Indian Junior Men’s Hockey Team continued their fine show in the FIH Hockey Men’s Junior World Cup Tamil Nadu 2025 with yet another scintillating 17-0 win in their pool B encounter against Oman.
In their previous outing, India had convincingly beaten Chile 7-0 and today their attacking hockey was on full display with Manmeet Singh (17′, 26′, 36′), Arshdeep Singh (4′, 33′, 40′) and Dilraj Singh (29′, 32′, 58′) scoring a hat-trick of goals while Anmol Ekka (29′), Ajeet Yadav (34′, 47′), Gurjot Singh (39′, 45′) Ingalemba Thounaojam Luwang (43′, 50′), Sarda Nand Tiwari (55′) contributed to India’s scoreline.
With this win, India are on top of the points table with 24 goals ahead of Switzerland. The opening quarter was quite a contrast though with Oman doing well in defence despite allowing an early 4th minute goal. It was Arshdeep Singh who opened the scorecard for India with a fine field goal but the following minutes didn’t go as planned for India. Oman managed to slow down India’s attacking pace and no real chance came by to extend their lead.
But after the two-minute quarter break, India came back with fresh ammunition in their attack and within three minutes of the second quarter, they had their second goal coming through Manmeet Singh. This young forward was a delight to watch as he created several opportunities for India in this quarter.
As many as three goals were scored in this quarter setting the momentum for India’s high-scoring game. Manmeet scored again in the 26th minute, while Anmol and Dilraj joined the party with their 29th minute goal that swelled India’s lead to a splendid 5-0 by the end of the first half.
India was in absolute command going into the third quarter and also overcame their early struggle to convert from PCs. They drilled four more goals in the space of five minutes in the third quarter with Manmeet completing his well-deserved hat-trick. Dilraj and Arshdeep continued their goal fest netting two apiece.
Three more goals came by in this quarter putting Oman under real pump and their defence remained hapless with the barrage of attack from India’s forwardline.
With 12-0 lead, the final quarter was a mere formality as India scored five more goals in this quarter. Unfortunately for Oman, who began positively, couldn’t keep up their momentum in the defence. Though they earned a PC, nothing came out of it. While India’s goalies came out with flying colours yet again, keeping another clean slate.
(IANS)
