It was a stroll in the park for Pakistan, Malaysia and Japan on day one of the men’s hockey competition at the Seonhak Hockey Stadium here. The goal margins clearly projected the gap that exists between the top teams and the rest in the region.
While Malaysia, struggling to rewrite its image on the Asian scene, salvaged a comfortable victory over Singapore after some initial hiccups, Japan demolished Bangladesh’s resistance to give the event a great start.
Coach Kang, a former Korean International, wore a satisfied look at the post media conference over the way his strategy worked. The Bangladesh coach, Naved Alam, faced a volley of questions over the result. He was at pains to explain the rating difference between Japan and Bangladesh but promised an improved showing in the next fixture.
Kenta Tanaka was the outstanding shooter for Japan.
Malaysia’s splendid opening result of 8-2 did not satisfy the interim coach, Arul Selvaraj. He was unwilling to go overboard on the result while acknowledging the confidence the outcome generated. He spoke about some weaknesses which needed to be ironed out before important matches this week.
Back onto the field of international competition after the failure to qualify for the World Cup and missing the Commonwealth Games owing to certain domestic issues that were purely administrative, Pakistan overwhelmed Sri Lanka. The margin of victory was huge, but missed the Games record (17-0 recorded by Pakistan against Thailand in the 1978 Asian Games at Bangkok).
The results: Men: Pool A: Japan 8 (Hiraki Sakamoto 2, Kenta Tanaka 3, Tomanori Ono, Katsuyoshi Nagasawa 2) bt Bangladesh 0; Malaysia 8 (Muhammad Razie 3, Fitri Saari, Firhan Ashari, Muhammad Mutlib, Tajuddin Muhammad, Abdulla Nibli) bt Singapore 2 (Latif Marican, Noor Shah); Pakistan 14 (Muhammad Imran 4, Muhammad Ifran 2, Muhammad Waqas, Umar Bhutta 3, Tausiq, Rizwan (sr) 3) bt Sri Lanka 0.
Pool B: China 5 (Du Chen 2, Sun Tianjun, Ao Yang, Zhang Zhixuan) bt Oman 0.
Sunday’s matches: Malaysia vs Bangladesh (9.30 a.m. IST); Pakistan vs China (11.30 a.m.); India vs Sri Lanka (1.30 p.m.); Korea vs Singapore (3.30 p.m.).
