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| March 23, 2003 | Sunday | Muharram 19, 1424 |
Pakistan Outclass Kiwis
IPOH (Malaysia), March 22: Pakistan on Saturday avenged their 7-1 loss at Commonwealth Games semifinal when they thrashed New Zealand 6-1 in their opening match of Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament.
The green shirts were looking for a revenge after being humiliated by the Kiwis at Commonwealth Games in Manchester last year.
Pakistan having three new players, playing under under cloudy conditions, started goal scoring-spree in the 9th minute when Kashif Jawwad banged the first followed by Mohammad Saqlain goal in the 27th minute on a short corner rebound.
The Kiwis reduced the lead 2-1 when Hayden Shaw beautifully placed a carpeted shot into right corner of the goal.
Pakistan scored two more goals within eight minutes of second half through Shabbir Hussain and Sohail Abbas and then two more in 51st and 59th minutes by Rehan Butt and Kashif Jawwad.
The victory must boost confidence of Pakistan before the most important match against world champions Germany to be played on Sunday.
The important feature of this tournament is that FIH is experimenting to explore possibility of having third or TV umpire to give ruling on decisions referred to them by supervising umpires.
The umpires in this event have been given ear sets with microphone so that they can communicate with TV umpire sitting in the stadium. The findings of these experiments would be evaluated before any final decision is taken.
The first such experiment was conducted during Women’s World Cup 2002 held at Perth.
Meanwhile, Malaysia held South Korea 2-2 in another match.
South Korea went ahead in the 17th minute with a penalty conversion from You Hyo-sik and made it 2-0 thanks to World Cupper Lee Jung-seon’s penalty corner attempt a minute before the interval.
The Malaysians showed tremendous fighting spirit as they charged back strongly from a 0-2 deficit in the first half to snatch a deserving draw.
S. Kuhan bagged both Malaysian goals with two well-executed conversions from penalty corners in 36th and 62nd minutes.—PPI
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