Islamabad: The Indian national football team won the SAFF Women’s Championship for the third straight time, defeating Nepal 6-0 in the final on Friday, triumphing for the first time on Pakistani soil.
Striker Bala Devi scored four times to taking her tally to 16 goals – the highest in a single edition of the championship – while Kamala and Prameshwori Devi also netted for the winning team.
Nepal, finalists on all the three occasions India won, tried to put up stiff resistance in the opening stages.
But they conceded after 15 minutes when Kamala latched on to a neat pass from Prameshwori. Bala doubled India’s lead in the 39th minute and scored again a minute later to make it 3-0 at halftime.
India showed no mercy on their hapless opponents post the break.
Bala completed her hattrick from close range at the start of the second half and also netted home her fourth at the closing stages of the match. In between Bala’s exploits, Prameshwori curled one in from the top of the box.
India, ranked 53rd in the world, were the dominant team in the competition by a distance, plundering 36 goals in five matches, conceding only once.
