Chayan sparkles as Bangladesh dump Thailand

FE Team | Published: May 10, 2010 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Penalty corner specialist Mamunur Rahman Chayan sparkled with his five goal feat including a dazzling hattrick as hosts Bangladesh humbled Thailand 8-1 in their inaugural Robi Asian Cup Hockey Qualifiers tie at the Moulana Bhashani National Hockey Stadium Sunday, reports BSS.
Hosts Bangladesh were comfortably placed with an indomitable 5-0 lead at the breather.
Bangladesh dominated the scene with their superior stick work forcing their opponents glued to their own zone and could have won with a more flattering margin as their forward line clearly looked exhausted in the hot and humid afternoon and squandered number of easy goal scoring chances. Moreover the defensive tactics of Thailand in the second half made the life harder for Bangladesh strikers.
But the Thailand defence had no answer and tactics countering the blistering drag and flicks of Chayan who implemented various techniques to deceive the Thai defence.
Chayan demonstrated perfect combinations with Jimmy and Nannu the initiators and Kuti and Biplob the stoppers in the penalty corner hitting all the angles of the board as well as the 18-inch board once.
Chayan hit the roof of the net to open the account in the 8th minute, scored the Bangladesh's third goal in a similar manner in the 12th minute. He went into his hattrick mission with three successive goals in the 38th, 58th and 66th minutes.
Jimmy controlled the midfield and also switched down to the flanks allowing others to operate in the middle while Krishna Kumar and Pushkor Khisha's continuous roaming to create constant threat in the Thai defence.
Apart from Chayan's five goals Bangladesh's three field goals came off Nannu, Habul and Kuti's stick in the 12th, 20th and 29th minutes. All the goals were the result of deflections of the hard hits from the 25-yard line.
Thailand's lone goal came off a solo effort in the 50th minute when left winger Surasak dashed down right flank and beat onrushing Bangladesh custodian Jahid with a neat push to reduce the margin.
Bangladesh coach Rach Gerhard Peter however was not satisfied with the game but was pleased with the result. 'Result wise Bangladesh won a good match but the players did not play as a unit' said the German who was preparing his team for a tough match against Chinese Taipei.
In the other matches of the day Hong Kong defeated Sri Lanka 4-3 with Arif Ali of Hong Kong scoring a brace and Ashgar Ali and Christopher Ajmed scoring apiece. Sri Lanka trailing 0-3 once staged a comeback with strikes from Abeyratne, Hettiarachchi and Gazzaly but tasted defeat.
Chinese Taipei drubbed Singapore 4-1 with Chen Yi, Tsai Ming, Chang Chu and Yang An scoring for the winners and Anbalagan scoring the consolation for the losers.