Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup:Netherlands trounces Pakistan 5-1
Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup:Netherlands trounces Pakistan 5-1 Netherlands moved to the knock out stage of the Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup with a flattering 5-1 win over Pakistan at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Sunday.It was second win for the Netherlands in pool D as it had beaten Malaysia 7-0 besides losing 1-4 to its arch rival Germany. While Asian games silver medalist Malaysia gets eliminated from the World Cup, Pakistan will play crossovers for having better goal average than its continental companion. Both Asian teams ended without a win in the pool games. It was the sixth game in round three of pool matches which saw the winning team scoring five or more goals. The game also featured two penalty corner goals, one each by Pakistan and Netherlands. Runners-up in the last edition of this elite tournament, Netherlands was put ahead by experienced Thierry Brinkmann in the seventh minute with a brilliant field goal. But the joy of the Dutch was short lived as Pakistan restored parity with a deflection of a penalty corner. Umar Bhutta found the target on fed for indirect conversion. Pakistan, however, could not progress beyond that goal. It did get its fairly good number of chances, including penalty corners but could not break the defence of its opponents. On the other hand, Netherlands kept on scoring at regular intervals. In the 27th minute Valentin Verga made it 3-1 with an opportunist goal while in the second half goals by Bob de Voogd (37th minute in the third quarter) and Jorrit Croon (47th minute, fourth quarter off a penalty corner) helped Netherlands to wrap up its last pool game in style with a flattering win. Man of the match : Ass van Seve
