India and Pakistan gave notice of the quality in their ranks ahead of the semifinals of the five-nation Hero Men’s Asian Champions Trophy 2021, scoring 12 goals between them in their last league matches at the Maulana Bhashani National Stadium here on Sunday.
It meant India finished top in the five-team fray while reaching the semifinals in style, crushing Japan 6-0 on Sunday afternoon, while Pakistan booked their berth in the last four by completing the formality of defeating hosts Bangladesh, which they too did in style winning 6-2 Sunday evening.
India will play 2nd semifinal against 4th placed Japan on Tuesday (Dec 21) at 6 pm while Korea will play the first semifinal against Pakistan at 3:30 pm on the same day and same venue.
The final match will be held on Wednesday at 6 pm at the same venue.
In the days first match, Harmanpreet Singh struck two in the 10th and 53rd minutes, both from penalty corners, Dilpreet Singh, Jarmnanpreet Singh, Sumit and Shamsher Singh scored one goal each for the India in the 23rd, 34th, 46th and 54th minutes respectively.
The bronze medalists of this year Tokyo Olympics India finished top in the five-team Asian meet with unbeaten run securing 10 points from four matches with three wins and a 2-2 draw against Korea. They also scored a whopping 20 goals along the way.
In the day’s 2nd match, Nadeem and Ahmed struck two goals each and Afraz and Razzaq scored one each for Pakistan while Arshad scored both the goals for Bangladesh
Source: United News of Bangladesh