Sri Lankan stickers finish ninth in Asian Cup

Sanjaya Ariyaratne

HOCKEY: Sri Lankan stickers finished ninth out of eleven countries at the Seventh Asian Cup Men’s Hockey Tournament worked off at the Radha Krishnan Hockey Stadium in Chennai, India, recently. Strong India were the champions at this championship while Korea was placed second with Malaysia ending up in third place.

In the grand final India beat Korea by seven goals to two while Malaysia defeated Japan by three goals to one. Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Bangladesh and former Asian heavy weights Pakistan and host India are the other countries who vied for honours in this tournament.

Competing in group `B’ Sri Lanka beat Thailand convincingly by nine goals to one in a first round match which was conducted under league basis, Centre Forward player M.M. Gazali of Sri Lanka was adjudged the man of the match.

Sri Lanka went down to Korea by two goals to 12 in the other match. Sri Lanka suffered a shock defeat at the hands of neighbouring India where Sri Lanka scored no goals. India who is having a good run in the Asian region hockey swamped Sri Lanka by 20 goals to nil.

In another group match China overcame Sri Lanka by a margin of ten goals to two. The latter also went down to Bangladesh by a closely contested game by three goals to two. Accordingly Sri Lanka came fifth in the group `B’.

Singapore reached fifth in the group `A’, in the match between group `B’ fifth place Sri Lanka and group `A’ fifth place Singapore, Sri Lanka beat Singapore comfortably by six goals to nil which enabled Sri Lankan stickers to end up in the ninth place throughout the tournament. Centre Half player K.S.S. Perera of Sri Lanka was adjudged the best player of the match.

For Sri Lanka Nimanka Fernando, N.A. Hewage, Ishanka Jayasundara, Chaminda Sumanaratne, S.D. Abeyratne and H.S. Hettiarachchi with one goal each were the goal scorers.

Sri Lanka didn’t take part in 2003 Asian Cup Hockey Tournament, the last tourney for Sri Lankan stickers in Asian Cup was 1999 after eight years. The Seventh Asian Cup Hockey Tournament commenced in the year of 1982 and Sri Lanka finished seventh, in the year 1985 Asian Cup Sri Lanka came eighth.