Jakarta: The Indian handball team edged past arch-rivals Pakistan 28-27 in a nail-biting main round group 3 men’s match at the 2018 Asian Games here on Friday. For India, Greenidge D’Cunha netted nine goals with Adithya Nagaraj scoring half a dozen.
Naveen Punia and Karamjeet Singh found the back of the net four times each as Harender Singh bagged a hat-trick. Khatkar Naveen also joined the goal fest with one to his name.
Muzamal Hussain scored seven goals for Pakistan followed by Muhammad Pervaiz and Hazrat Hussain scoring five apiece and Muhammad Atif netting four. Muhammad Zubair and Asim Saeed collected hat-tricks each. It was Pakistan who opened the floodgates in the second minute when Muzamal scored.
Zubair made it 2-0 soon after before India rode D’Cunha’s strike to open their account. Pakistan led till 9-8 before India started pulling things back and took the lead for the first time in the game when D’Cunha scored. India went into the break leading 14-12. In the second period, it was a see-saw battle as both outfits refused to give an inch until the final minute when at 27-27, India’s Punia found the winner from the right wing.
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