Kazakhstan thrash Afghanistan in Hockey Series Open

LAHORE: Kazakhstan’s Aman Yelubyev scored a hat-trick while captain Daulet Urmanov scored twice in their team’s easy 8-0 win over Afghanistan in their match of the Hockey Series Open here at the National Hockey Stadium on Wednesday.

Kazakhstan, who along with Uzbekistan have emerged as the clear favourites, attacked from the beginning and repeatedly entered the opponents’ circle.

They created a number of chances in the first quarter and availed themselves of two of them.

A neat little three-touch move saw the ball with an unmarked Aman near the left pole who easily put it in.

Daulet doubled the advantage after receiving a good ball in the circle — his low reverse flick found the far side of the board.

Two goals arrived in the second quarter also. Daulet’s second was a superb individual effort. He sprinted into the circle and with an angular top-of-the-circle-hit sounded the left corner of the board.

A goal came off their fifth penalty corner with Nurbol Kazhym flicking the ball high into the net.

The third quarter was spectators’ delight as three beautiful goals were added. On the eighth penalty corner, a variation was wonderfully deflected into the goal by diving Tilek Uzbek.

Aman eliminated two with a superb dribbling run parallel to the goal line before finding the target from a tight angle.

The seventh goal was scored by Yermik Tashkeyev who covered more than 20 metres in an exhilarating run beating a defender and the goalkeeper before hitting it in. Aman completed his hat-trick in the first minute of the last quarter, finishing a right side move.