Greenshirts stay unbeaten in hockey

JAKARTA: Pakistan head to the semi-finals of the 2018 Asian Games hockey tournament with a perfect record.

At the Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex in Jakarta, the Greenshirts displayed another commanding performance to outplay Bangladesh 5-0 on Tuesday.

This was the tournament’s final Group B match for Pakistan, who won all their games with big margins.

Atiq Arshad put Pakistan on the board in the very first minute and the Greenshirts added two more goals before the break.

Atiq and Mubashar Ali found the net twice each while Ali Shan completed the tally.

In other completed matches on Tuesday, Malaysia defeated Oman 7-0 to finish second in Group B while India hammered Sri Lanka 20-0 in their last Group A fixture.

Pakistan defeated India 21-25, 25-21, 25-21, 25-23 in the men’s volleyball tournament at the Tennis Indoor Stadium in the Bung Karno Sports Complex.

The two neighbouring teams are competing for the seventh and 12th places in the Games after both suffered losses in the preliminary round.

Pakistan went 0-3 down to South Korea while India failed to overcome Japan and lost 1-3.

On Tuesday, both Pakistan and India played their hardest to maintain prestige and victory.

It was not surprising that the scores rallied 8-8, 10-10 to 18-18, after Prabagaran’s block failed to hold the spike of Sheraz Sheraz.

India managed to overcome Pakistan’s pressure, winning the first set with a 25-21 lead after Aimal Khan’s spike went wide.

At the beginning of the second set, Pakistan took the initiative through a combination of fast attacks with tight blocks.

Hamid Movahedi’s team immediately took advantage by leading 8-3 and continued until 18-11, which put India further behind. Although India tried to catch up, Pakistan proved to be more dominant, ending the second set 25-21 through the spike of Raza Mubashir.

A rallying score was repeated in the third set, with the two teams exchanging attacks — Pakistan through Aimal Khan and India through Charles Jerome Vinith.

India, who were leading up until the middle of the third set, could not maintain their advantage and Pakistan took over the lead 16-15 before a second “technical time out”.

Pakistan led the set and added another point to the scoreboard, thanks to a perfect block by Aimal of the spike of Vinith. Pakistan won 25-21.

The beginning of the fourth set was tight, with Pakistan leading 8-6 through a crossing spike by Murad Jehan.

India’s persistence began to bear fruit as they led 20-19 after Raza Mubashir’s serve failed to cross the net.

However, Pakistan did not give up and upped the pressure against India to win the fourth set.

In the competition for 13th and 18th positions, Nepal beat Mongolia 26-28, 25-16, 30-28, 25-19.

There were contrasting results for Pakistan in the squash tournament.

While the women’s team lost 0-3 against Japan, the men’s team beat Philippines by the same score.

In the baseball tournament, China defeated Pakistan 16-3.

Pakistanis lost all their matches in the soft tennis tournament.

Eibad Sarwar Hussain Khan was beaten 0-4 in both his matches; against Enkhjin Bolortuya of Mongolia and Prima Simpatiaji of Indonesia.

Muhammad Yahya met the same fate against Kim Jinwoong of South Korea and Japan’s Hayato Funemizu.

In the women’s event, Syeda Eraj Batool Zaidi went down 0-4 in both her matches, while Varisha Khan also suffered defeats by the same margin in her three encounters.

Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie stunned Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen for Asian Games badminton gold as a home pair affectionately dubbed the “Minions” won the men’s doubles at a rocking Jakarta arena on Tuesday.

Christie said he’d never dreamed of being crowned Asian Games champion on home soil after his thrilling 21-18, 20-22, 21-15 against the world number six — his first title of the year.

Later, Taiwan’s world number one beat PV Sindhu 21-13, 21-16 in 34 minutes — the fifth final defeat in a row for the much-endorsed Indian, who is listed as the world’s seventh richest female athlete.

The delighted Christie ripped off his shirt as fans roared after his win over Chou, which made him Indonesia’s first men’s singles gold medallist since former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat in 2006.

The world number 15 overcame nerves to edge the first game but after faltering in the second, he regained his composure in the decisive final game.

It capped a memorable run for Indonesia’s men after Anthony Sinisuka Ginting knocked out world champion Kento Momota and Olympic gold-medallist Chen Long en route to bronze.

“I did not expect that I can win a gold at the Asian Games. Actually there are a lot of good players here and I never expected that I could come out as a winner,” said Christie.

“But now I have to look ahead. It doesn’t stop here. A day’s rest and I will start preparing for the next tournament.”