While the much celebrated senior team prepares for the Rio Olympics hockey challenge that begins in a week's time, it's the junior Boys in Blue who are raising quite a few eyebrows during their ongoing tour of England. Four out of seven scheduled matches have been played so far and the side has won each contest, convincingly.
Their latest result that was effected on Thursday evening is an emphatic 7-1 rout of the home team England.
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It all started as a relatively quiet first quarter was about to close when Haryana midfielder Manpreet got on the end of a wonderful cross to draw first blood for India in the 15th minute. The lead was canceled out by Ed Horler almost immediately, in the 17th minute to make it all square at 1-1.
The second quarter provided a display of wonderful end-to-end hockey played out between the two evenly matched sides, but it was the Indians who started dictating matters soon enough. Ajay Yadav regained India’s advantage when he tapped in Gurjant Singh’s pinpoint cross in the 27th minute.
Next, it was Varun Kumar’s turn to join the party. Scoring two penalty corner goals in quick succession, he stretched the scoreline to a comfortable 4-1 in favor of India at half-time.
Trailing the visitors by a fair distance, it was fast turning into a humiliation for the young English team. Having played a crucial part in India’s previous goals, forward Gurjant Singh got on the scoresheets in the 38th minute to make it 5-1.
In the 40th minute, Simranjeet Singh produced an absolute stunner to extend India’s lead even further to five goals. Three minutes later, it was Ajay Yadav once again, who completed his brace by finding the net for India’s 7th time of the night in style.
The English team looking helpless on the field, it stayed 7-1 till the final whistle. Such show of aggressive and dominating hockey from India on foreign soil was remarkable to witness ahead of the Junior World Cup to be held in December this year.
