India begin European Tour on bright note, thrash Dutch club 7-0

New Delhi: The Indian hockey team began its European Tour on a positive note by hammering Leiden Hockey Club (Dutch National Club) 7-0 in the first build-up game played at Oegstgeest, The Netherlands.

This tour is a preparation for the FIH men's World Cup, scheduled to be held at The Hague, Netherlands from May 31 to June 15.

The match started off with both the teams defending well against each other. It was in the 18th minute when Akashdeep Singh scored the first goal for India. Soon after, in the 21st minute Nikkin Thimmaiah scored the second goal for the team. The Indian team kept up the attack and fully dominated the first half of the game.

Leiden club tried to come back in the game but Indian goalkeeper P R Sreejesh did a good job in keeping the opposition attack at bay. The Indians went into the break leading 2-0.

In the second half, Rupinder Pal Singh scored two consecutive goals in the 38th and 39th minute of the game through penalty corners. Even Leiden Club got a chance to score in the second half but substitute goalkeeper Harjot Singh saved an excellent penalty corner and helped India maintain the 4-0 lead. Ramandeep Singh scored the fifth goal for India in the 43rd minute through a penalty corner.

The Indian team fully dominated the session and Leiden was not able to stop it from scoring. Soon after, Raghunath scored another goal for the team in the 45th minute by converting a penalty corner and took the lead to 6-0. In the 53rd minute Yuvraj Walmiki came up attacking and scored a sensational seventh goal for the India team and the match ended with a score of 7-0 on the board.

India will now take on HGC (Dutch National Club) on Monday.