India routed neighbours Bangladesh by a massive margin of 15-1 in the men's Asian hockey 5s World Cup Qualifier on Tuesday. Maninder Singh made life extremely difficult for Bangladesh and was the top-notch performer for India in the clash as he scored four goals - most by any player in the fixture.
Maninder found amazing support from Mohammed Raheel who scored three goals himself while Sukhvinder, Gurjot Singh and Pawan Rajbhar hit two each. India thoroughly dominated the fixture and gave no room for Bangladesh players to script a comeback. Mandeep Mor and Dipsan Tirkey scored one goal each for India.
At no stage, Bangladesh looked like being anywhere close to giving India a fight in the match as Sawon Sarowar scored the only goal for them.
India's domineering effort saw them take a decisive lead of 7-1 when the play halted for halftime. The newly crowned Asian champions were all over Bangladesh and continued to launch attacks while pressing deep into their half.
Bangladesh players couldn't play to their fluent best as Indians kept launching one attack after the other and were behind the eight-ball from the beginning.
India's performance has been quite impressive lately. They recently won the Asian Champions Trophy contested in Chennai, Tamil Nadu where they defeated Malaysia 4-3 in the summit clash to win the crown.
Barring a draw against Japan in the group stage, the Men in Blue annihilated every opposition that they came across during the entirety of the game. The final turned out to be a nail-biting affair and the hosts were lagging at one stage but fuelled by the overwhelming support of the home crowd, the Harmanpreet Singh-led side turned the tables in their favour and became champions.
India will now square off against Oman which will be followed by an eagerly awaited clash against Pakistan.
