“For us, the real Asian Games start in two days’ time,” this comment by men’s hockey team coach Harendra Singh, savage as it is, shows the real picture.
Harendra’s comment was a true reflection of the game as India broke an 86-year-old record by pumping in 26 goals against Hong Kong on Wednesday. It was the biggest international win for India, improving on the 24-1 margin registered against USA at the 1932 Olympics. The legendary Dhyan Chand and Roop Singh were part of that Indian team.
As for today’s win, no one would have any doubt about the result. The reigning Asian Games champions and world No. 5 India were clear favourites. And sure enough, the team gave an early signal that they were in the mood to score goals for fun. India scored four goals in the first five minutes to set the tone of the match, adding a sixth before the end of the first quarter. They were 14-0 up after the second quarter.

Halftime push
At halftime, Harendra asked his team to give it all to break the long-standing record. “I told them to go for the record and become a part of history. I can understand today they do not know the significance of the scoreline but once they age, they will feel proud of this achievement,” Singh said after the match.
Harendra’s men then put their hapless opponents to the sword. As many as 13 players from India logged their name on the scorecard. The scoring chart was led by drag-flickers Rupinderpal Singh (3rd, 5th, 30th, 45th, 59th minute) and Harmanpreet Singh (29th, 52nd, 53rd, 54th), and Akashdeep Singh (2nd, 32nd, 35th) was the third player to score a hat-trick. Manpreet Singh (3rd, 17th), Lalit Upadhayay (17th, 19th), Varun Kumar (23rd, 30th), SV Sunil (7th), Vivek Sagar Prasad (14th), Mandeep Singh (21st), Amit Rohidas (27th), Dilpreet Singh (48th), Chinglensana Singh (51st), Simranjeet Singh (53rd) and Surender Kumar (55th) too sounded the board.  India withdrew the regular goalkeeper Krishan Bahadur Pathak, who had replaced PR Sreejesh after the first half, and put Rupinderpal in the goal as kicker-back. He scored the last of his goals in the 59th minute playing as the makeshift goalie.
Wednesday’s win came on the back of a 17-0 win over hosts Indonesia on Monday.

Challenges ahead
Harendra later said that things going forward will get tougher. “We got two good practice matches against these two teams. We could experiment in these games but as far as I am concerned, the real Asian Games for us begin in two days,” he said. India will play Japan on Friday and South Korea on Sunday. Manpreet Singh conceded that the Indians went into the match eyeing improvements before playing Japan and South Korea. “We have two big games coming up so the plan was to do simple things correctly. Our focus was on penalty corner conversion and controlling the ball speed and on attacking play,” he said. “We got to know about the record only after the match. Focus during the match was to score as many goals as we could… But yes, it is great that we have created history by scoring so many goals,” he added. Chris Ciriello, the analytical coach of the team, said a few things didn’t go according to plan. “Every drag-flicker got to score a goal, which is a good thing. I feel sorry for the guys playing for the opposition team,” the former Australian drag-flicker said. “It was also good that the strikers are making that many PCs as well. We won 26-0 in this game but there were a lot of things the guys didn’t do well,” he added. “We had a few corners today from which some of the pushes and traps weren’t good enough.”