Asian Champions Trophy Day 1: India Trounce, Pakistan Starts With Loss against Hosts

Asian Champions Trophy started with a major upset and big result. In the first game, the hosts Malaysia shocked the Pakistanis, who failed to even qualify for Rio Olympics. The second match saw a sixer from Rupinder Pal Singh as India trounced Japan 10-2. While the first match had all goals scored through Penalty corners and penalty stroke, the second match had 6 penalty corners scored, all by Rupinder Pal Singh, who has now scored 165 goals for India in 153 matches.

2016 Asian Men’s Hockey Champions Trophy: Schedule and Results, Indian Squad

India vs Japan
As the inaugural edition champion of Asian Champions Trophy played the 2013 silver medal winner Japan, ball started reaching the net right from the start with Ramandeep scoring a field goal in 2nd minute. As Rupinder Pal Singh started showing how dangerous Penalty Corners could be, if converted, by the time the clock reached 22nd minute, Rupinder had already scored 4 goals. Before Japan could realize what hit them, they were down by 7 goals.

Japan managed to scored 2 goals to get the scoreline look less shocking but Indians were not ready to settle for anything less than trouncing to register their biggest win after 9 goals wins against Bangladesh three years before.

Rupinder Pal converted two more penalty corners at the start of 4th quarter, while Yousuf Affan completed the rout with his solitary field goal in 50th minute. Ramandeep Singh scored twice while Talwinder scored one.

The match started with a field goal and finished with a field goal from Indians. But, in between they added 6 penalty corner and two more field goals for one of their biggest wins.

Goal Scorers

India: Ramandeep Singh (2′, 15′), Rupinder Pal Singh (9′, 12′, 15′, 22′, 46′, 47′), Talwinder Singh (19′), Yousuf Affan (50′)
Japan: Kenta Tanaka (23′), Hiromasa Ochiai (38′)

Malaysia vs Pakistan
The match saw no field goals, but still had plenty of them. 5 of the goals were scored from Penalty Corners, while Malaysian Faizal’s first goal came through a penalty stroke.
Pakistan took the lead in 34th minute through the double penalty corner conversion by Bilal, but the hosts fought hard and finally emerged a clear winner with 4-2 scoreline.
Goal Scorers

Malaysia: Firhan Ashari (13′), Faizal Saari (37′, 60′), Shahril Saabah (41′)
Pakistan: Muhammad Aleem Bilal (18′, 34′)