Saturday 20 / April / 2024
Muscat: Hosts Oman launched their campaign in the Men’s Junior AHF Cup Muscat 2023 in style as they hammered Chinese Taipei 9-1 in a Pool A match at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex on Friday night.
The opening day of the eight-nation tournament witnessed three other matches with Bangladesh, Thailand and Uzbekistan emerging as winners.
Former champions and last edition’s runner-up Oman had an easy outing against Chinese Taipei, who were the winners of the inaugural tournament.
Oman took an early lead through Osama Barazahan and Hassan al Balushi and Barazahan made it 3-0 before the break. Ilyas al Noufali extended the lead soon after the interval and Aiman Madit was on the scorer’s list before Hussam Bait made it a tennis score 6-0.
Chinese Taipei got a consolation goal through Chun Yu Chang but Oman pumped in three more goals with Hussam Bait completing a hat-trick with two more goals and Ilyas al Noufali rounding off the scoreline to make it 9-1.
In the other Pool A match, Thailand defeated debutant Indonesia 2-1 to pick up full points.
In Pool B, Bangladesh had it easy against Hong Kong 4-0 while Uzbekistan trounced Sri Lanka 7-3.
The opening day’s action was also witnessed by the visiting International Hockey Federation (FIH) President Tayyab Ikram along with Oman Hockey Association chairman Marwan Juma. The FIH supremo is in the Sultanate of Oman to review the preparations of the inaugural FIH Hockey 5s World Cup, which is scheduled to be held in Muscat in January 2024.
