Young striker Dharamvir Singh scored a double as India defeated a lowly Scotland 4-0 in a Pool A match to stay in hunt for a semi-final spot in the men's hockey event, at the Commonwealth Games.
Dharamvir (12th & 61st) and Sarwanjit Singh (7th) scored field goals while Dhanjay Mahadik (51st) converted a penalty corner for India. The victory over Scotland has the set tone for tomorrow's high-voltage Indo-Pak match, which for the home team would be a virtual quarter-final as they need an outright win to progress to the semi-finals. Pakistan, on the other hand, have some breathing space as they have a better goal difference than India going into Sunday's match and a draw would be enough for them to shatter India's hope.
Going into Sunday's match, Pakistan has a goal average of plus five as against India's plus two and a draw would not do any good for the home team.
Short corner conversion still remains a concern for India coach Jose Brasa as they made use of only one out of the five they earned in the entire 70 minutes against Scotland. But as expected, it was all India all throughout match as they mounted numerous raids into the Scottish citadel from the word go.
Scotland's ploy of crowding their defence did not pay much dividend as India opened the scoring as early as in the sixth minute through Sarwanjit, who tapped in the ball after receiving a diagonal pass from Shivendra Singh.
Two minutes later, India wasted their first penalty corner when Shivendra failed to stop the ball. But soon an opportunistic Dharamvir made it 2-0 after Sandeep Singh's pass from the midfield was kicked away by Scottish custodian Alister McGregor, only to fall in the Indian forward's stick and he made no mistake in slamming the ball home. Scotland's first open chance in the match came minutes before the breather but custodian Bharat Chetri came to India's rescue denying Lenise Marais from a one-to-one situation.
The story after the change of ends was no different as Indian went for goals and go two in the process. Mahadik converted a short corner in the 51st minute with a powerful low dragflick which the Scottish goalkeeper McGregor had no answer.
Soon after Scotland earned their only penalty corner of the match but Chetri took the flick on his body and then Mahadik cleared the ball past danger zone.
Star drag-flicker Sandeep was off-colour with his flicks today as he wasted another scoring opportunity in the 66th minute from India's fifth and final set-piece movement. Shivendra, Tushar Khandkar and captain Rajpal Singh too had a bad day in office as they failed to capitalize on the numerous scoring chances. Scotland, meanwhile, drew curtains on their disappointing Commonwealth Games campaign without a win having lost all their pool matches. The Scotts were earlier beaten 0-3 by Pakistan, 0-9 by Australia and 0-2 by Malaysia.
