Malaysia routed Kazakhstan 16-2 to launch their campaign for the gold medal of the men’s Hockey competition at the GBK Hockey Stadium.
The huge margin of victory, as well as the clinical finishing coupled with a good conversion rate of obesity corners, will surely be a boost to Coach Stephen van Huizen’s side. Although Kazakhstan were not formidable opponents, the fact that the Malaysians showed good individual skills as well as teamwork will surely make others sit up and take notice.
“It has been a long time since I scored so many goals in an international match,” said Malaysia’s five-goal hero Razie Rahim. “While we are Glad with the margin of the victory. We need to analyses the two goals we conceded and plug the defensive lapses.
It took Malaysia only a minute to open scoring via Faisal Sabri who converted a penalty corner. Faiz Helmi (6th minute), Razie Rahim (8th) and Nik Aiman Nik Rozemi (9th and 13th gave Malaysia a 5-0 lead. Kazakhstan pulled one back when Aman Yelubayev converted a penalty stroke in the 14th minute against the run of play. That did not deter the Malaysians as they dominated the second quarter adding goals through Shahril Saabah (20th and 21st minutes), Meor Muhamad Hassan ( 22nd minute) and Mohd Syafiq Syed Choulan (30th minute) for a 9-1 lead at halftime.
Razie got his second and Malaysia’s tenth goal in the 34th minute and it was a matter of how many more Malaysia would add to the score. Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin Tengku Ahmad made it 11-1 in the 38th minute. Two penalty corner goals from Razie (42nd) and Faisal (43rd) made it 13-1. Razie scored his fourth in the 48th minute for a 14-1 lead before Faisal completed his hat-trick in the 53rd minute. Kazakhstan scored their second goal in the 55th minute courtesy of Iigam Abdilabsyev for a 15-2 scoreline. But Malaysia had the final say as RRazziecompleted the rout, scoring his fifth in the 56th minute for a 16-2 final scoreline
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