Commonwealth Games: Indian men's hockey team beats Ghana 11-0
The Indian men's hockey team beat Ghana 11-0 in the 2022 Commonwealth Games on Sunday in Birmingham. Dragflickers Harmanpreet Singh scored a hat-trick as Jugrag Singh netted a brace, The Indian team played to its strength and scored five goals in the first half before pumping in four and two goals in the last two quarters. Here are the details.
Vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh (11th, 35th, 53rd) scored a hat-trick, while Abhishek (2nd minute), Shamsher Singh (14th), Akashdeep Singh (20th), Jugraj Singh (22nd, 43rd), Nilakanta Sharma (38th), Varun Kumar (39th) and Mandeep Singh (48th) were the other scorers for India.
Indian dominated the show from the start and maintained composure. Vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh was in top form. Ghana had five penalty corners but India held firm to stay strong. Interestingly, India converted six out of 13 penalty corners they earned in the match.
The Indian men's hockey team bagged a historic bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics last year. India stunned Germany 5-4 in their bronze medal match after losing to Belgium in the semis. Post that, India took home the bronze medal in the 2022 Asia Cup. India beat Japan 1-0 in the third place game. South Korea won the gold.
Hockey was first played at CWG in the 1998 edition and became a core sport post that. India finished fourth in 1998, losing against England in the bronze medal ecounter. India did not participate in 2002 and went home finishing sixth in 2006. In the 2018 edition of the CWG, India finished fourth. They were beaten 2-1 by England in the bronze medal match.
