Indian hockey teams off to overwhelming starts at Youth Games qualifiers

Bangkok    :  The junior Indian men and womens hockey reams started their campaign at the Youth Olympic Games Qualifiers in emphatic fashion here on Wednesday. The girls blanked Singapore 14-0, while the boys crushed hosts Thailand 25-0 in the five-a-side contests.

In their first Pool B match, the women's team opened their account in the second minute via a goal from Sangita Kumari. Three minutes later, Mumtaz doubled the lead with Vice Captain Lalremsiami adding to the tally in the seventh minute. Ishika Chaudhary and Sangita made it 5-0 at the end of the first period.

Singapore had no answers to the pace and skills showed by the Indian team in the second period. Deepika scored the sixth and seventh goal in space of two minutes. 

Sangita, Lalremsiami and Mumtaz came to the party scoring four more goals between them as at the end of 2nd period India were leading 11-0.

There was no respite for Singapore in the final period as Lalremsiami and Sangita added three goals in the final period with the match ending at 14-0. 

Sangita ended with six goals (second, eighth, 15th, 17th, 21st, 28th) to her name while Lalremisiami scored three (seventh, 17th and 21st).

Meanwhile, the men's team blanked the home side 25-0. Seven goals in first period and 10 in the second and eight in third left the Thailand team gasping for breath.

Mohammad Alishan (fourth, 10th, 17th, 20th, 25th and 29th) with six goals and Rahul Kumar Rajbhar (second, 12th, 18th, 22nd and 23rd) with five goals did the bulk of scoring across three periods.

Rabichandra Moirangthem (10th, 15th, 20th and 29th) and skipper Vivek Sagar Prasad (seventh, ninth, 27th and 28th) hit the back of the net four times each. Except for the goalkeeper every member of the squad was on scoring sheet at the end of the regulation time.

The junior men's team will take on Japan in their second pool game on Thursday while the junior women's team will take on south Korea.

The five-day tournament is a qualifying event for Youth Olympic Games 2018 to be held at Buenos Aires.