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Indian women move ahead in hockey

C N R Vijaykumar in Bangkok

India brightened its chances of entering the finals of the women's hockey event of the 13th Asiad with a 6-1 drubbing to Kazakhstan in the seven-team round-robin league here today.

India led 4-1 at half time.

The side, which combined well as a team to chalk out their fourth win in the league, takes on Japan tomorrow for an entry into the finals.

The Indians, having tasted their first defeat in their previous league encounter against the formidable South Koreans (0-5), played to a plan today, ably led by captain Pritam Hakaran who scored two goals.

Kamala Dalal, Sita Gussain, Surajlata Rani Waikhom and Sandeep Kaur scored the other goals for India.

For the losers, the solitary goal came through B A Mutallayapova.

India held the upper hand throughout the match and scored at will. The team drew the first blood in the sixth minute. In a combined move Manjinder gave a cross to Kamala who fed the ball to an onrushing Pritam who in turn deflected back to Kamala to sound the target (1-0).

However, Kazakhstan surprised India two minutes later and equalised against the tide of the game. Mutallyapoya rasped home a rebound from Indian goalkeeper T Kshetrimayum who failed to clear correctly a shot by Yelena Lind (1-1).

India had to wait for 10 more minutes before it increased its margin, this time converting its third penalty corner through Sita Gussain from a direct shot (2-1).

Two minutes later India increased the score to 3-1 when skipper Pritam got her first goal. Kazakhstan replaced their goalkeeper N Sumkina with T Tussubzhanova after conceding the third goal. But that did not prevent the marauding Indian forwards from continuing successfully their goal hunt.

Four minutes before the breather, India went up by one more goal when Pritam scored once again encashing on a deflection from Manjinder following a free hit (4-1).

After crossing over, India, for the first 20 minutes, played out easily and did not press hard. They got the remaining goals through penalty corner conversions with the fifth one coming from the stick of Suraj Lata who did not fail in capitalising on a deflection from Manjinder (5-1).

The team squared up the tally when Sandeep Kaur converted directly the tenth and the last penalty corner India got (6-1).

Kazakhstan could not convert any one of its three penalty corners.