Chennai: India equalled the tournament record for maximum number of goals as they pounded a hapless Sri Lanka 20-0 in their pool B league match of the Asia Cup hockey tournament at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here on Saturday night.
India kept the goodly Saturday crowd thoroughly enthralled as a total of eight players featured in the record effort with striker Prabhjot Singh leading the onslaught with five goals. The winners led 10-0 at half-time.
The previous record for maximum number of goals is held jointly by Malaysia and Pakistan. Malaysia defeated Thailand 20-0 in the Hiroshima (Japan) edition in November 1993 while Pakistan also thrashed Thailand by identical margin the same year.
In the other highlight of the second day's play, former champion Pakistan were shocked 1-3 by Japan 1-3 in a Pool A league match.
Earlier, in two other high-scoring matches, Malaysia defeated Hong Kong 13-1 in Pool A while Korea swamped Thailand 16-0 in Pool B.
Putting up a good team effort, the hosts, who toiled before managing to pull off a 1-0 win against China in their group opener last night, showed opportunism in pouncing on the 50th ranked Sri Lankans to increase their goal tally. In fact, the day's goal aggregate stood at 60.
Prabjoth Singh, Shivendra Singh, Tushar Kandeker and S V Sunil tormented the rival defence making foray after foray and tasted success on most occasions. It was a lovely sight to see the strikers at the right spot to receive the measured passes and convert them with ease.
The Sri Lankans, who were thrashed 12-2 by Korea in the first pool match, offered no resistance and were hardly seen in the Indian half.
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