Colts thrash South Australia 3-0

Runaway victory for Pakistan U18 side in Australia

KARACHI: Pakistan Junior notched up their third victory of the Australian U18 Hockey Championship by defeating South Australia 3-0 in their fourth fixture of the tournament on Sunday.

Comfortable 3-1 winners in their last outing, the Colts were confident from the onset, dominating possession and testing the South Australian goalkeeper early on, even though they wouldn't break the deadlock until the 16^th minute.

The opening goal came via the stick off Afraz Hakeem, who scored following a nice attacking move.

With Pakistan having gone up 1-0, the game opened up with both teams unleashing wave after wave of attacks on each other, resulting in four shots on target for Pakistan and three for South Australia.

The home side were awarded a penalty corner in the 24th minute but failed to convert, much like the visitors who had three penalty corners of their own in first half alone but failed to add to their 1-0 lead.

Pakistan received two more penalty corners in the opening five minutes of the second half but again failed to capitalise. Two more penalty corners went in vain, with South Australians this time being the profligate players.

The trend of wasting such gilt-edged opportunities finally ceased in the 65^th minute when Rizwan Ali converted the umpteenth penalty corner to put Pakistan ahead 2-0.

Shahzaib Khan added a field goal in the 67th minute of the game to complete the scoring and seal the match.