India wallop Lanka by record 20-0 scoreline

Chennai, Sep 1 (UNI) It rained goals in two matches and on an eventful day Japan upset Pakistan 3-1, celebrating the 100th year of the formation of its Federation, while defending champions India thrashed minnows Sri Lanka by a record 20-0 rpt 20-0 scoreline to register their second successive win the league phase in Pool B in the seventh Asia Cup hockey tournament for men at the astro turf stadium here today.

Bottling up the famed Pakistani forwardline, Japan registered their first win against Pakistan scoring through Ono Tomonori-braceand , Yamabori, while Shakeel Abbasi reduced the margin for Pakis when they were down 1-2. Japan led by a goal at half time.

It was a special day for India as compelled to catch up on the goal average with Korea in the fight for a semis berth. Korea also in pool B along with another contender China, notched up their second win winning 16-0 against Thailand, who suffered their second defeat in the league.

As India dominated playfrom the very first minute befittingly , captain Prabodh Tirkey forced open the floodgates converting the very first penalty corner.

Then as the Sri Lankan defence fell in tatters with goal keeper Jayasooriya under tremendrous pressure, India capped their fantastic win with hat-tricks by S V Sunil ( three) and Prabhjot Singh (six).

The other goals came from Raghunath (three), who also converted a penalty corner and a penalty stroke, Ignace Tirkey (two), Shivendra Singh (three) and Tushar Khandekar-the experienced winger (three).

Prabhjot Singh was declared 'man of the match.

It was also befitting that India closed their tally with agoal from Rajpal Singh who engineered almost every move in tandem with the other medio Gurbaj Singh. This was India's 26th win against the Lankans in as many matches. The two had last met in the SAAF Games in Colombo last year, in which India had won 9-1.

India also increased their tally to six points to be on par with Korea, while China opened their tally with a 6-0 win against Bangladesh in Pool B.

Earlier, Korea ran up their second win with a 16-0 win against Thailand, up by seven goals in the first half. Kim Byung Hoon was the top scorer for Korea with five goals.

(Eds: pick up suitably from earlier series) UNI