Indian hockey team started its European tour on a winning note by thrashing leiden Hockey Club (Dutch National Hockey Club) 7-0 in their first build up game played at the Hockey Club leiden, Oegstgeest, The Netherlands, on Friday.
The match started off with both the teams defending well against each other. It was in the 18th min when Akashdeep Singh scored the 1st goal for India through field goal and took a lead of 1-0. Soon after, in the 21st min Nikkin Thimmaiah scored the second goal for the team. Indian team kept up the attack and fully dominated the 1st half of the game. leiden club tried to come back in the game but India's goalkeeper P R Sreejesh saved the goal and India did not let leiden score a single goal till the end of the 1st half and maintained the 2-0 lead.
In the second half, Rupinder Pal Singh scored two consecutive goals in the 38th and 39th minutes of the game through penalty corner. Even leiden Club got a chance to score in the second half but goalkeeper Harjot Singh saved an excellent penalty corner and helped India to maintain the 4-0 lead.
Ramandeep Singh scored the fifth goal in the 43rd min through penalty corner. Soon after, Raghunath scored another goal in the 45th min by converting penalty corner and took the lead to 6-0. In the 53rd min Yuvraj Walmiki came up attacking and scored a sensational 7th goal.
India will now take on HGC (Dutch National Club) on 14 April 2014.
Results
India: 7: Akashdeep (18m), Nikkin (21m), Rupinder (38, 39m), Ramandeep (43m), Raghunath (45m), Yuvraj (53m) Vs leiden Club 0.
Meanwhile, Hockey India has said in a release that fans can follow India's practice match against Belgium will be live streamed onApril 15, 2014 at 10:30 pm IST at www.sportsbroadcasting.nl.