Pakistan thrash South Korea

KARACHI: Pakistan crushed South Korea 4-1 on Tuesday, recording their first victory in the four-nation hockey tournament in Australia.
Muhammad Dilbar was the architect of the win as he crushed the defence line of South Korea and netted two goals.
Pakistan had lost their matches against Australia by 6-0.
It may be noted here that their match against Australia A was not part of the four-nation event.
Australia A will not play against the other participating teams of the event.
Pakistan took the lead when Dilbar netted one in the first quarter.
Pakistan scored two more goals in the second quarter, through Dilbar and Umar Bhutta.
Later Pakistan got a penalty corner on which Irfan scored the fourth goal.
South Korea got a penalty corner in the last quarter and managed to score a goal.
Pakistan’s chief coach Shahnaz Sheikh told ‘The News’ that the team had started gaining rhythm and would gain further momentum with each passing day.
He said the Green-shirts missed at least three open chances of field goals against South Korea. Besides, they missed several other chances of scoring. “Otherwise we would have won by a big margin,” he said.
He said the defeat against Australia was not shocking. The boys had just reached Australia after a long journey when they played against Australia, he claimed. He said Australia were at the top in world rankings.
Shahnaz said he was not pursuing wins. “We are playing here to get training and practice against the world’s best teams. We did not play international hockey for two years, so players’ skills had been rusted and their confidence had gone down. Our main purpose is to give the boys exposure of international hockey against tough opponents,” he said.
“We have only 15 to 20 international matches before participating in the qualifying rounds of Rio Olympic in one month,” Shahnaz said.
“Therefore, we are focusing on establishing a fighting team by trying different combinations and seeing how much they have learnt during the camp training.
“Participation in these matches will tell us how they play under pressure against the world’s strongest teams,” Shahnaz said.
He was confident that Pakistan would play better in the coming matches.
Shahnaz asserted that Pakistan were improving gradually and hoped that they would play well against New Zealand on Thursday (tomorrow).
Meanwhile, Australia defeated New Zealand 3-0 in the other match of the day.