Skip to main content

Virat Kohli is perfect for No. 4 spot: AB de Villiers

India has struggled to find a suitable No.4 ever since Yuvraj Singh retired from cricket from | The Hindu https://ift.tt/gQTYZn4
Post a Comment

FIFA World Cup 2022 Qualifiers: Japan demolish Mongolia 14-0; Saudi Arabia beat Palestine

Tokyo: Japan stayed perfect in World Cup qualifying by routing Mongolia 14-0 on Tuesday, their fifth win of the second stage coming 16 months after the fourth.

The Japanese scored five goals in the first half, added nine more in the second and now lead Group F with 15 points. A victory over Myanmar on June 3 will secure first place in the group and a spot in the third round of Asian qualifying.

The eight group winners and four best second-place teams will advance to the next stage, which is scheduled to start in September.

Takumi Minamino, Yuya Osako, Daichi Kamada and Hidemasa Morita all scored in the first half, along with an own-goal from Mongolia defender Khash-Erdene Tuyaa.

Osako ended up with a hat trick, while Sho Inagaki, Junya Ito and Kyogo Furuhashi scored two goals each. Takuma Asano also scored.

Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu said a big winning margin against Mongolia wasn’t the priority.

“Rather than focusing on their opponents, our players concentrated on what they wanted to achieve for themselves,” Moriysasu said in comments reported by the Kyodo news agency. “I was able to try some different formations and expand our options.”

The Japanese warmed up with a 3-0 win last week in a friendly against South Korea, organized after their scheduled match against Myanmar was postponed.

Tuesday's game had been scheduled to take place in Mongolia but was changed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Asian Football Confederation decided earlier this month to play all remaining Group F matches in Japan. Mongolia was coming off a 3-0 loss to Tajikistan in Dushabe last Thursday, one of the first games in Asian qualifying since November 2019.

Later Tuesday, Saudi Arabia beat Palestine 5-0 in the only other qualifying match from the Asian region and moved to the top of Group D above Uzbekistan.

Yasser Al-Shahrani and Fahad Al-Muwallad scored late in the first half to give the hosts the lead in Riyadh. Two goals from Saleh Al-Shehri early in the second and a late penalty from Salem Al-Dawsari completed the rout.



from Firstpost Sports Latest News https://ift.tt/3fnIvIm
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please do not Enter any Spam Link in Comment Box

Popular posts from this blog

Past Masters of Indian Badminton: Sarojini, Sunila and Sanjeevani Apte - a tale of three sisters who ruled the Nationals

Editor's Note:  Owing to the Coronavirus outbreak, all sporting action across the globe stand suspended or cancelled. The crisis, however, presents us with an opportunity to step back, rethink, and write on sports differently. In line with this thought, we are running a series of profiles on India's illustrious badminton stars. The articles, penned by Shirish Nadkarni, promise to take you on a nostalgia trip while touching upon the lesser-known facets from the lives of the past masters. Few badminton players can boast of the kind of consistency and all-round excellence that characterised Sarojini, the eldest of the three Apte sisters who dominated Indian badminton in the mid-1960s. Sarojini played in six Indian Nationals, from 1962 to ’67, and figured in the finals of all the three events in all the six years, except for a solitary ladies doubles final in 1964. In other words, seventeen out of eighteen National finals, but producing a slightly better than one-third result – s...
Post a Comment
Read more