India thrashed China 9-0 to stay in the hunt for top spot in the round-robin league competition of the fourth Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament here on Tuesday.
Akashdeep Singh, Yousuf Affan and Jasjit Singh Kumar scored three goals each as India steamrolled the Chinese.
Rupinder Pal Singh, captaining India in this match, Nikkin Thimmaiah and Lalit Upadhyay also made entries as India boosted its points tally to 10 from four matches, one of which was drawn.
India will take on host Malaysia on Wednesday with both teams in contention for top spot in the round-robin league standings.
Malaysia has nine points from three successive victories.
No Sreejesh India went into this game without goalkeeper P.R. Sreejesh, who was seen wearing a brace on his left ankle. This paved the way for the coaches to give a full game to goalkeeper Akash Chikte, who did well to ward off two penalty corner shots in a game otherwise played in the Chinese territory.
Akashdeep opened the Indian account in the ninth minute when he intercepted a back-pass and beat goalkeeper Wang Hong Yu with a shot from the top of the circle that went into the net.
Brisk raid Akashdeep was also in the picture for India’s second goal in the 18th minute as he squared the ball to unmarked Affan in a brisk raid. Affan sent a well-directed push into the boards.
Jasjit swapped passes with Talwinder Singh before scoring with a fine reverse shot that wrong-footed the custodian in the 22nd minute before Rupinder converted the first penalty corner three minutes later to give India a 4-0 lead at half time.
India’s highest goal-getter with eight penalty corner conversions in this tournament, Rupinder is also the highest scorer of the tournament so far.
Rupinder also sent the second Indian penalty corner into the net, but the goal was cancelled on video review sought by the Chinese team.
The results: India 9 (Akashdeep Singh 3, Yousuf Affan 3, Jasjit Singh Kumar 3) bt China 0; Pakistan 4 (Muhammad Ifran Jr, Muhammad Aleem Bilal 2, Muhammad Rizwan Sr.) bt Japan 3 (Seren Tanka, Kenta Tanka, Hirotaka Zendana).
