Asian Games: Indian men's hockey team beats Oman 7-0

Indian men's hockey team notched up its second consecutive win in the Asian Games beating Oman 7-0 at the Soenhak Hockey Stadium here Tuesday.

Drag flickers Rupinder Pal Singh and V.R. Raghunath struck a brace each while Akashdeep Singh, S.V. Sunil and Danish Mujtaba scored goals apiece. India won 8-0 against Sri Lanka in their opening match of the hockey tournament.

Both the teams made a careful start and in the first quarter the focus was on the defence. It was early in the second quarter of the match that India secured a penalty corner and Rupinder splendidly converted it into a goal in the 18th minute.

In the next minute, Rupinder was again on target and converted yet another penalty corner to double the lead for India.

India continued their dominance in the third quarter as well. It was Akashdeep in the 33rd minute who made no mistake to convert a penalty corner taking the score to 3-0 and Raghunath immediately sliced in a penalty stroke in the 39th minute to increase the lead by 4-0.

The fourth quarter of the match saw Oman trying to penetrate the Indian half. The Indian midfielders and defence line-up held their ground and snatched away the opportunities from Oman. It was only in the 54th minute of the game when Indian forward Sunil converted a penalty corner to take the score to 5-0.

A field goal pierced by Mujtaba in the 60th minute and Raghunath converting another penalty corner in the same minute completed the scoreline for India.

India will be play their third match against Pakistan, Thursday and will end the group stage against China, Saturday.