Favourites India continued their strong showing in the men's Junior Hockey World Cup as they scored a dominating 5-3 win over England in a Pool D encounter to virtually secure a place in the quarterfinals, here on Saturday.
India, who had earlier spanked Canada 4-0 in their tournament-opener, scored two goals in the first half through Parvinder Singh (24th minute) and Armaan Qureshi (35th) before finding the net thrice in the second half, courtesy Harmanpreet Singh (37th), Simranjeet Singh (45th) and Varun Kumar (59th).
India had the first shy at the goal in the third minute when Sumit showed fine stick work to dodge a few English defenders and cut inside the opposition circle from the right only to find the side netting with his reverse shot. England took lead against the run of play in the 10th minute from a counter attack through Clee's field strike. The goal, which stunned the entire stadium, came as a wake-up call for the Indians who thereafter did not concede an inch to the opponents.
Pressing hard in search of the equaliser, India earned their first penalty corner in the 23rd minute. Varun Kumar's try from the set piece was saved by the English defence but from the resultant attack Parvinder drew level from a move that was set up by skipper Harjeet Singh.
Armaan made the scoreline 2-1 in favour of India just at the stroke of half time. Unmarked inside the circle, he just had to dab the ball inside the goal after being set up by Harjeet's cross from the left flank which got slight deflection from the stick of Parvinder.
India continued in the same vein after the change of ends and earned their fourth penalty corner with the opening move of the second half and Harmanpreet rose to the occasion to extend the home team's lead.
Next it was Simranjeet's turn to register his name in the scoresheet.
Dragflicker Varun then made the scoreline 5-1 favour by converting India's fifth penalty corner.
Towards the end England went full throttle and were also rewarded with two goals.
But that was all England could manage as India thereafter managed to hold on to their two goal cushion to pocket full three points.