Asian Games 2023: Fast and fabulous India hammer Pakistan 10-2 in hockey

India’s Lalit Kumar Upadhyay during the match against Pakistan in Hangzhou on Saturday. Pic/AFP

There was a time when some of the India and Pakistan hockey players would not even shake hands after a hotly-contested match given either side would be unhappy to lose to their arch-rival. However, on Saturday, India skipper Harmanpreet Singh calmly put his hand over the heads of some of the young Pakistani players after his World No. 3 team annihilated their neighbours 10-2 in a record result at the quadrennial games at the Gongshu Canal Sports Park Stadium here.

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Drag flicker Harmanpreet scored four times (11th, 17th, 33rd, 34th), while teammate Varun Kumar netted a brace (41st, 54th) and Lalit Upadhyay (49th), Shamsher Singh (46th), Sumit (30th) and Mandeep Singh (8th) contributed a goal each. For Pakistan, Sufiyan Khan (38th) and Abdul Rana (45th) scored consolation goals.

India coach Craig Fulton was all praise for his team. "This team are fast, they are genuinely fast. When they are in full flow, it's a nice spectacle. It's one thing to be fast, but also to be skillful at that speed is helpful. It was nice to see some of the goals that we scored through speed," he said.

Pakistan goalkeeper Akmal Hussain also hailed the speedy Indians. "The Indian players are very experienced. They are very fast and our ball control was not good today," he said.

Creative forward Lalit Upadhyay aptly summed up Team India's motive: "Winning is important and it's a great feeling if the margin is big, but our main target here is to get the gold medal."