India faces Indonesia in the Men’s Asia Cup of Hockey 2022.
To advance to the knockout stage, India had to defeat Indonesia by a large margin and hoping for Japan to defeat Pakistan in the other pool match so that Japan and India are the two teams from stage A.
Alternatively, if India loses against Indonesia or even if the match gets drawn, then India will shift to the 3rd position in the pool table and Pakistan will qualify for the further stage.
Just before the match between India and Indonesia, there was a match played between Japan and Pakistan, which resulted in Japan’s winning by 3-2. Now India will need to win with a huge margin of 16 or more goals against Indonesia.
As India’s chances of progressing to the next stage dwindled, there was still a ray of hope under the captaincy of Birendra Lakra, with a young team sharing the experience of some of their senior players who were on the field to give their all.
The match started as Birendra Lakra and his team came out with a clear mindset to attack. They seemed relentless with the attack, but Indonesia wasn’t letting them clear out and score goals so easily. In the 7th minute itself, Uttam Singh missed a clear opportunity to achieve the first goal.
However, irrespective of the opportunity missed, India wasn’t going to stop the attack. As soon came the result of the continuous attack, Pawan smashed the ball into the goal post of the opponent team. Soon enough, in the very next minute itself, India got an opportunity for a penalty corner but failed to convert it in the first and second attempts to a goal, but in the third attempt, Pawan didn’t miss the opportunity and hit the ball through the nets of the Indonesian team.
The first quarter came to an end as India led the scoreboard by 3-0.
The second quarter started, and so did the Indians’ attack. The team was looking unstoppable as the frequent goals were coming along. By the end of the second quarter, India had doubled their lead.
At halftime, India led the score by six goals to zero, but still, it was a long way to go, and if they needed to qualify, they had to hit at least nine more goals.
The third quarter gets underway in the first few minutes itself. Uttam strikes but misses as the dominance of the Indian team, the strike Abharan Sudev scores the 10th goal in the 44th minute as India extends the lead to 10-0.
In the last quarter, a minimum of five goals was needed for India to qualify. In the last two minutes, they scored two goals. Only 10 minutes were left for the final whistle. Then came a hat-trick for Pawan as he scored the third goal.
India takes a 16-0 lead over Pakistan to take second place in Pool A and advance to the knockout round.