Indian girls breeze past Sri Lanka 7-1

Colombo: Riding on Suman Mohapatra’s hat-trick, Indian girls brushed aside hosts Sri Lanka 7-1 in their opening match of the AFC Under-14 Regional Championship at the City Football Complex here Thursday.

India led 3-0 at the interval and Suman scored all three of her goals in the second half. Defending champions India surged ahead in the 19th minute when Roja Devi scored. Thereafter, Lifa Gama made it 2-0 (28th minute) while Srijana Tamang scored the third goal two minutes later. Changing over, the Indians dominated proceedings and a barrage of attacks eventually led to Suman scoring a brace (53rd, 60th). Karen Pais netted the sixth in the 69th minute while Suman completed the rout in added time. All matches are of 70 minutes duration with two halves of 35 minutes each.