Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey: India trounce Canada 14-3 to storm into final
India, who had only been defeated by Belgium by one goal earlier in the tournament, defeated New Zealand with a sensational 3-2 win in their previous match.
India will face Belgium in the summit match on Sunday.
The match started with an early goal from Nilakanta Sharma in the fourth minute, followed by a goal in the 10th minute from Rajinder Singh, who has performed well since his debut in the senior team.
It was an exciting start to the game, with Canada responding to the initial targets by building computers and even making conversions from them. In the 11th minute, Brendan Guraliuk converted a beautiful PC.
In the next minutes, two more goals were scored by Jugraj Singh and Amit Rohidas in the 12th and 15th minutes respectively. The 4-1 lead put India in a good position to improve its performance in the second quarter. While the senior stars on the team were rested for this tournament, the onus was on the youngsters to stay in the shadows and they did well to keep the pressure from the Canadian defense at bay. The rain of goals continued in this quarter; Rajinder scored his second goal in the 24th minute, Dilpreet Singh in the 25th minute and Jugraj in the 26th minute.
Leading 7-1, India were unstoppable, but Canada entered the third quarter making minor changes to their attack, which led to a penalty kick in the 35th minute.
Matthew Sarmento made no mistake as he sent this goal into the post and made the score 7-2.
Meanwhile, Jugraj scored a hat-trick in the 39th minute and India’s lead increased to 9-2 with Selvam Karthi’s goal in the 43rd minute.
The final quarter was just a formality but this is where the maximum goals came as both teams raised the bar. 6 goals were scored in this quarter.
It all started with Rohidas’ PC in the 46th minute, followed by Jugraj’s penalty kick conversion in the 50th minute.
Both teams continued to trade possessions and Canada brought the score to 3-11 with a goal from Jyothswaroop Sidhu.
While Sanjay got his name on the scoresheet with the goal he scored from the penalty in the 56th minute, Abhishek took the match to the top by scoring a double in the 57th and 59th minutes.
