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The Indian junior men's hockey team started their campaign in the Australian Hockey League with an impressive display as they beat Malaysia Blue 4-2 in their opening match of the tournament. This is the first time that the Indian side has been invited to participate in the tournament by Hockey Australia and the great start to the tournament means that the team will be confident of reaching the finals.
The game started off with Malaysia taking an early lead through a penalty corner in the 3rd minute which was converted by Malaysia’s Saari Faizal. The Indians looked set to concede once more in the first quarter but did well to keep the score down to 0-1.
However, it was the second quarter which proved to be very fruitful for the Indian junior side as two goals in three minutes saw India take the lead as half-time approached.
The goals were scored by forward Armaan Qureshi in the 19th minutes and by defender Varun Kumar in the 21st minute. The tie had turned on its head as India continued to dominate in the second half. It was India’s forward Gurjant Singh who started the scoring in the second half as he was at the right place at the right time to put the ball into Malaysia’s goal to make it 3-1 in India’s favour at the 32nd minute of the game.
Ten minutes later, Armaan Qureshi popped up with his second of the evening to assure his side of the victory as India led 4-1 against Malaysia Blue. However, the losing side tried to fight back which resulted in them getting a penalty corner at the stroke of 55 minutes. The resulting corner was coolly converted by Saari Faizal, who managed to score his second goal of the day.
The game ended 4-2 in India’s favour as they started the tournament on a high. The Indian junior side is being led by Harjeet Singh while Dipsan Tirkey has been assigned the role of vice-captain.
The team also has Vikas Dahiya as their goalkeeper after he had featured in the Rio Olympics for the national team as a back-up for PR Sreejesh. Mandeep Singh is also one of the known Indian players who is a part of the junior side in Australia.
Teams from Malaysia and New Zealand will also feature in the Junior Men’s tournament of the Australian Hockey League where a total of twelve teams are taking part.
