Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: India gave a rousing start to their campaign at the 11th FIH Junior Hockey World Cup by thwarting minnows Canada 4-0 in Lucknow on Thursday.
Led through a 35th minute strike by Mandeep Singh, Indians dominated from the start pushing the visitors to the edge.
Harmanpreet Singh (46th minute), Varun Kumar (60th minute) and Ajit Pandey's (66th minute) strike in the second period led the home team to victory.
The Canadians, however produced some brilliant defending to restrict the hosts from scoring maximum in the first half.
Around half-time, Mandeep opened the scoring by punching in a fantastic rebound that was followed by three brilliant strikes by Harmanpreet, Varun and Ajit.
The hosts dominated the second half as well. They earned two consecutive penalty corners a little after the restart but could not capitalise on them.
They doubled their tally a few minutes later when Harmanpreet scored from a penalty stroke followed by Varun's strike from a penalty corner to score the third goal for the hosts.
Pandey then rounded off the tally in the closing stages when he struck a field goal after some excellent build-up play.
