India continued their dominant start to the 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026, thrashing Sri Lanka 16-1 in their second Pool A match at the Gifu Prefectural Green Stadium on Tuesday.
The defending champions had opened their campaign with a 13-1 win over Indonesia and produced another ruthless attacking display against Sri Lanka. Eight different Indian players found the net, with Jugraj Singh leading the scoring with four goals while Abhishek and Dilpreet Singh completed hat-tricks.
India race into an eight-goal half-time lead
India needed only five minutes to open the scoring, with Mandeep Singh finishing a move involving Jarmanpreet Singh.
Jugraj doubled the advantage in the 10th minute with a penalty-corner drag-flick before Abhishek made it 3-0 a minute later. Harmanpreet Singh converted
another penalty corner in the 16th minute, and Abhishek struck again almost immediately to put India five goals ahead.
Jugraj added his second in the 22nd minute, although he was denied a hat-trick before half-time when his effort in the 24th minute was ruled out following a video referral.
India continued to find gaps in the Sri Lankan defence. Sukhjeet Singh made it 7-0 in the 29th minute after a penalty-corner variation, before Dilpreet Singh added another a minute later to send India into the interval 8-0 ahead.
Jugraj, Abhishek and Dilpreet complete hat-tricks
There was little let-up after the break.
Manpreet Singh scored a rare field goal in the 31st minute, followed by Vivek Sagar Prasad's backhand finish five minutes later. Dilpreet then added his second in the 38th minute before Jugraj completed his hat-trick from a penalty stroke in the 42nd.
Harmanpreet converted another penalty corner in the final minute of the third quarter to make it 13-0.
Abhishek completed his hat-trick in the 49th minute with a back-of-the-stick finish, but Sri Lanka finally found a response a minute later. Suresh Rathnayake scored in the 50th minute to register Sri Lanka's first-ever goal against India in the Asian Games.
India quickly restored their eight-goal advantage. Jugraj converted another penalty stroke in the 53rd minute to take his tally to four, while Dilpreet completed his hat-trick two minutes later to seal a 16-1 victory.
The result leaves India with two wins from two in Pool A and 29 goals from their opening two matches. They will face South Korea in their next match on September 24 at 11:30am IST.
