Indian men book semis with authoritative win over South Africa
Scotland, 31 July 2014: With an impressive 5-2 win over South Africa in the last league match, India made it to the semis.
India started the campaign today with brisk, earning their first penalty corner opportunity just 3 minutes into the game. V R Raghunath made no mistake in converting
The very next minute India earned their second penalty corner but was saved by the South African goalkeeper Erasmus Pieterse.
India kept the pressure on the opponents and in the 9th minute India’s Rupinder Pal Singh was successful in converting the penalty corner and helping his team take a 2-0 lead. While South Africa kept looking for the opening, getting past the defence of India was proving to be a huge task for them. In the 22nd minute Ramandeep Singh scored a field goal for India to take the lead further to 3-0. India already high on momentum kept looking for scoring opportunities and in the 26th minute SV Sunil got a brilliant pass and he made no mistake in converting the fourth goal for India.
South Africa in the 42nd minute finally registered their first goal, which came from the stick of Taine Paton and taking the score tally to 1-4. With the first goal registered South Africa yet again scored in the 47th minute and this time it was through a penalty corner coming from the stick of their Captain Austin Smith.
With 4-2 on the scorecard, India ensured a good ball possession hereon hence not allowing the opponents any opportunity to attack. It was in the 58th minute when Manpreet Singh’s diving goal helped India take the score card to 5-2. The rest of the session saw both teams trying to score but were unsuccessful in doing so and the game ended with India taking a convincing win and the bus to the semi-finals.
India will take on New Zealand in semi-final-1 on 2 August 2014 at 1645hrs IST.