Ahmedabad: All it was required was one point against England for India in their last league match to enter the semis. India made a comfortable win against England to enter with the score of 69-18. The team led by Anup Kumar put together great team efforts to unfold this convincing win against England to qualify for the semis and move ahead. However, Pool A team needs to wait till the crucial match of Thailand Vs Japan today.
India played with the same seven who were in the previous match but the coach Balwan Singh was keen on experimenting with players and made several substitutions. Ajay Thakur, Pradeep Narwal and Sandeep Narwal got plenty of chances to attack and place their hand on opponents. In absence of Manjit Chillar, Surjeet was deadly and completed his high-five however he committed two silly mistakes in second half. At the end of the first half India were leading with a huge margin of 45-6 with Ajay Thakur scoring 9 and Pardeep Narwal with 11 points respectively.
In the second match of Pool B, it was mighty Kenya against USA. With their playing style and fighting spirit Kenya was already match’s favorite. Kenya kept their semi-final hopes alive by beating USA with 74-19 in their last league match. With Iran on top Kenya acquired the second position by pushing Thailand to third. Other than regular spectator today’s match between Thailand and Japan will be closely watched by Kenya, Iran and India.
Kenyans will pray that Japan win today so that Thailand remain at the third position and Kenya qualify. Iran will watch the match because if Thailand win they will become the No, 1 team in Pool B forcing Iran to play Korea in semi-final. India will be watching the match today because there is no clarity on No. 1 position of Pool B which India will be playing against in semi-final.