By Harpal Singh Bedi

Jakarta, Aug 20 (UNI) India decimated Indonesia 17-0 in their opening Pool A league match of the Men’s Hockey competition here on Monday.

On a day which saw record 70 goals being scored off six match, the lop sided nature of the tournament stood exposed.
In other matches, Malaysia trounced Kazakhstan 16-2, Korea ran over Hong Kong China 11-0, Japan overwhelmed Sri Lanka 11-0, Pakistan routed Thailand 10-0 and Bangladesh beat Oman 2-1. Like earlier match, India-Indonesia match also turned out to be no contest as the defending champions scored at will.
For the winners, who led 9-0 at half time, the goal scorers were Rupinder, Dilpreet Singh , Simranjeet Singh (three each) Akashdeep, Mandeep Vivek (two each) Sunil, Harmanpreet (one each) were the scorers.
India opened the goal rush in the first minute when Rupinder converted a penalty corner and last goal came off a penalty corner in 54th minute.
The winners were 5-0 up by the end of the first quarter, added four more by the time next quarter ended and then scored four and three in third and fourth quarter.
India forced eight penalty corners, converted four off them directly, managed to score off two others and muffed two.
The match left handful of spectators wondering as why it was being played. The Indonesians had no clue of what was happening on the field. However they did surprise their formidable rivals by making three forays into their circle through Richard Brando, G Rehmatullah and Aulia Akbar.
The Indians did miss some easy chances otherwise the margin of victory world have been much higher. The totally one sided matches took the sheen off the day’s proceedings.
India were originally scheduled to play their first match on 22 August but the schedule was rearranged at the last minute as all the 12 teams played their matches on Monday.
It will be interested how many goals these hapless teams like Indonesia, Hong King China, Thailand, Srilanka will concede in their future matches in this tournament.
The main stake holders in the tournament, India, Pakistan,Korea, Japan and Malaysia who ran riot against untrained and unheralded teams must be wondering what they gained from their opening matches while the losers must be thinking why they are here at the first place.
UNI HSB RSU 2104