KUALA LUMPUR: The national men’s indoor hockey team got their second consecutive victory in style when they mauled Taiwan 12-2 in their second match in the single round league of the Asia Cup Indoor Hockey Championships 2022 in Bangkok, today .
In the action at the Huamark Indoor Stadium, the squad coached by Muhamad Amin Rahim received stiff resistance in the first half, but managed to take a 3-0 lead and thereafter blasted nine more goals in the second half.
The national team’s desire to record a clean sheet without conceding any goals for the second time after beating Singapore 6-0 yesterday was not achieved when they let in two due to the laxness of Muhamad Amin’s boys.
Muhammad Aslam Mohamed Hanafiah scored a hat-trick with his field goals coming in the sixth, 38th and 39th minutes while Muhammad Najmi Farizal Jazlan, Faridzul Afiq Mohd and Shello Silverius each scored two goals.
Muhammad Najmi’s two goals were through a penalty corner in the fifth minute and a penalty stroke (31st minute) while Faridzul made his mark as a scorer through penalty corner goals (14th and 40th minutes), Shello scored via a field goal (22nd minute) and a penalty stroke in the 36th minute.
Completing the goal feast was a penalty corner goal by Razali Mohd Hazemi in the 29th minute and two field goals scored by Muhamad Izham Azhar in the 34th and 37th minutes respectively.
Taiwan managed to get their two goals through field goals by Tsai Chang-Yu in the 28th minute and Hsieh Tsung-Yu in the 36th minute.
“Alhamdulillah, overall the players performed better than yesterday but we have to look again at how the opposing team were able to score goals when we controlled the game.
“”I am happy that the team managed to score goals through all methods and hope this momentum will continue when we play better teams,“ Muhamad Amin said in a brief statement via WhatsApp to the media today.
After two matches, Malaysia are ahead of the other six challengers with six points and have a chance to defend that position if they win when they face Thailand in the third game at the same venue tomorrow. - Bernama
