Hockey World Cup 2023, 9th-16th classification Round-up: RSA, WAL, ARG, IND win to move further
By Ayush Gupta | First Published Jan 26, 2023, 1:58 PM ISTHockey World Cup 2023: The 9th–16th stage happened in Rourkela on Thursday. While South Africa trounced Malaysia 6-3, Wales stunned France in a shootout. Argentina pounded Chile 8-0, whereas India similarly pummelled Japan.
The 2023 FIH Men's Hockey World Cup is witnessing the 9th–16th place classification games at the Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium in Rourkela on Thursday. The day's opening contest happened between South Africa and Malaysia, as the former produced a dominating performance to sail past the latter 6-3. For the Africans, Bradley Sherwood (ninth and 57th), Guy Morgan (17th, PC), Nqobile Ntuli (26th), Keenan Jorne (43rd) and Mustaphaa Cassiem (44th, PS) found the back of the net. On the other hand, Razie Rahim (35th [PC] and 45th [PS]) and Firhan Ashari (57th) scored for the Malaysians. The intense match saw seven bookings.
For SA, Cassiem, Sherwood and Ntuli saw the green cards, followed by Samkelo Mvimbi witnessing a yellow in the 32nd minute. As for Malaysia, Rahim and Najmi Jazlan were green-carded, while Amirul Azahar saw the yellow on the 35th. The Africans would now face the winner of the India-Japan clash, which takes place later during the day at the same venue, while the Malaysians would face the loser of the Indo-Japan meeting.
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The next game was between Wales and France, which turned out to be a competitive contest, as it ended 2-2 after regulation time. The former opened the scoring through Luke Hawker in the tenth minute, followed by the latter's equaliser five minutes later by Corentin Sellier. In the 21st, the French gained the lead, with Sellier scoring his brace.
However, France's relief could not last long, as a couple of minutes later, Gareth Furlong hammered in the equaliser through a PC. As things moved into the shootout, Wales skipper Rupert Shipperley and Benjamin Francis managed to punch in, while Lewis Prosser and Jack Pritchard missed out. In contrast, Timothée Clement was the only scorer for the French.
The match had six bookings, with four coming for the Wlesh, as Simon Martin-Brisac and Etienne Tynevez saw green, while Gaspard Baumgarten and Clement saw yellow. For France, Stephen Kelly and Gareth Furlong were shown green.
In the subsequent encounter, Chile was up against Argentina, and evidently, the latter was ruthless, punding eight past the former and winning 8-0. As for the goal-scorers, they were Nicolas della Torre (ninth, PC), Maico Casella (17th and 34th), Lucas Toscani (19th, PC), Bautista Capurro (23rd), Nicolas Keenan (25th), Martin Ferreiro (51st) and Tomas Domene (56th, PC).
Interestingly, none of the sides saw witnessed any bookings. While the Argentines take on Wales in the following round, the Chileans would be up against France in their subsequent round.
In the day's final match, Asian champion Japan was up against India, while the latter came up with a similar show to Argentina's and won 8-0. The goal scorers were Mandeep Singh (33rd, PC), Abhishek (36th and 44th), Vivek Sagar Prasad (40th, PC), skipper Harmanpreet Singh (46th and 59th, PC each), Manpreet Singh (59th) and Sukhjeet Singh (60th, PC). While there were no bookings in the game, the hosts face South Africa in the next round on Friday, while Japan takes on Malaysia.
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