LAHORE: Former world and Olympic champions Pakistan were thrashed by fast-rising Canada hockey team 6-0 late on Friday night in the World Hockey League semi-final round in London.

This was Pakistan’s second consecutive defeat in the event which serves as a qualifier for next year’s World Cup, scheduled to be held in India.

The first match saw The Netherlands crushing Pakistan 4-0. But the defeat at the hands of Canada by such a big margin is more alarming for green shirts who are desperately eyeing a spot in the World Cup.

Canada displayed free-flowing hockey, attacking in a well-coordinated way in the circle which resulted in a couple of tournament’s best goals.

Also, Canada’s wingers proved very effective with Pakistan failing to stop Canada’ goal-scoring blitz which included three field goals and two penalty-corner conversions, with another coming off a penalty-stroke in the last minute.

Pakistanis appeared a disjointed lot and made a number of unforced errors in their defence. The green shirts got several scoring chances like the first match but poor finishing barred them from scoring.

With the high-profile game against traditional rivals India scheduled for Sunday, the greenshirts, who have so far failed to score even a single goal while conceding 10, will have to pull up their socks.

If Pakistan also loses to India on Sunday, then it will have only one match against Scotland which has gained one point after playing a draw against Holland.

In case of losing to India and then playing a draw against Scotland, Pakistan may not qualify for the quarter-final stage of the event from where top five teams will go to the World Cup.

In the other match of the day, Olympic Champions Argentina defeated Malaysia 5-2 with world’s leading penalty-corner striker Gonzalo Pelliat scoring all the first four goals for his team.

Malaysians tried to match up to their indefatigable opponents with both sides being 2-2 after thirty minutes but Argentina prevailed later on.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2017