India beat Australia 5-4 in FIH Pro League (Twitter)
Harmanpreet Singh scored a hat-trick while Jugraj Singh and Selvam Karthi scored a goal each as India beat Australia in a nine-goal thriller.
Skipper Harmanpreet Singh grabbed a hat-trick from a penalty corner to guide India to a rare 5-4 win over Australia in a nine-goal thriller in the FIH Pro-League Hockey on Sunday.
Harmanpreet scored in the 13th, 14th and 55th minutes after Australia took an early lead in the second minute through a Joshua Beltz field goal as the home team led 2–1 at the end of the first quarter.
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Jugraj Singh continued the Indian dominance with a penalty stroke in the 17th minute before Selvam Karthi scored a field goal in the 25th minute to give his side a 4-1 lead at half-time.
India did not score any goal in the third quarter but Australia scored through Kay Willott in the 42nd minute at the Birsa Munda Stadium. The visitors scored through Ben Staines and Aran Zalewski, both from penalty corners in the 52nd and 56th minutes respectively.
An action-packed fourth quarter saw three goals, including Harmanpreet’s goal from PC in the 55th minute, his hat-trick.
Both sides earned 10 pc each, out of which India scored three and Australia scored two.
Australia came here with a number of players who were not part of their squads that played in the World Cup here and in Bhubaneswar in January. Eight out of 20 players in the current squad have played 10 international matches or less.
Australia finished fourth in the World Cup.
India were also without eight players from the World Cup squad, including senior players Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh and Neelkant Sharma, who were ruled out of the pre-quarterfinals from the showpiece.
India will face Germany in the second leg match on Monday before taking on Australia again on Wednesday.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)