Wom Asia Cup: 4 losing teams strike a solitary goal on the one-sided opening day
Asia’s premier women’s competition — Asia Cup — started on expected note at the gigantic Bukit Jalil hockey stadium in Kuala Lumpur, with a remarkable feature all the four losing teams on the opening day of today collectively striking a solitary goal.
The scenario of Asian hockey, especially the women’s is bleak, the organizers even showing signs of satisfaction at putting 8 teams on b board.
Even here, as all the teams played a match each on opening day today, the talisman of just four teams are truly in competitive mode in Asia came to the light yet again.
Expectedly, China, India, Japan and South Korea won their matches striking more than a dozen goals, though the credit of restricting china to just three goals go to the hosts, who lost just 0-3.
Scores of day 1
China 3 Mal 0
India 13 Hong Kong China 0
Japan 13 Chinese Taipei 0
South Korea 12 Kazakhstan 1
As can be seen from the above, it was only at the fourth match of the day, the losing team struck a goal.
As far India, its Rani Ramphal, who was declared the Best Player of the recent Junior World Cup, who set the stage for a grand 13 – 0 win over the hapless rivals, she accounted for seven goals, while Vandana Kataria added three.
India who led 9-0 at the halftime scored through Rani (2, 6, 23, 24, 26, 34, 58 min), Kirandeep Kaur (5 min), Vandana Katariya (13, 18, 39 min), Poonam Rani (69 min) and Joydeep Kaur (70 min) while their opponents Hong Kong China failed to score any goal.
India will now take on China in their next match on Sunday 22 September 2013.