Hockey India League: Harmanpreet Singh Scores As Soorma Club Beat Kalinga Lancers In Seven-Goal Thriller

Belgian goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch dished out a stellar performance to help Soorma Club beat Kalinga Lancers 4-3 in a thrilling match of the Hockey India League at the Birsa Munda Stadium in Rourkela on Sunday. Jeremy Hayward (11th minute), Nicolas della Torre (35th), Harmanpreet Singh (50th) and Harish Somappa (52nd) scored for Soorma while Thierry Brinkman (5th), Sanjay (30th) and Gursahibjit Singh (50th) were on target for the Lancers. In the day's second match, Tamil Nadu Dragons claimed a 2-0 win against UP Rudras to collect all three points.

Abharan Sudev scored the opening goal for Tamil Nadu Dragons in the 48th minute, while Thomas Sorsby added a second in the 60th minute to seal the issue in his team's favour.

Earlier, in a match which saw the Lancers notch 26 circle penetrations and nine shots in comparison to the Soorma's 14 and seven respectively, it was Vanasch's heroics at the goal which laid the foundations of Soorma's win.

The Lancers started strongly as they put pressure on the Soorma defence with multiple circle entries in the opening minutes. The Lancers deservedly took the lead in the fifth minute through Netherlands national team captain Brinkman.

Soorma got their first penalty corners in the 10th minute after a swift counter launched by Jeremy Hayward, but they wasted it.

Soorma only needed to wait a minute more for their goal and it came via a penalty corner. However this time, the injection went to Hayward at the second battery with Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Sanjay unable to fully block the Australian's drag flick.

The ball hit both players before rolling into the goal to level the scores in the 11th minute.

The Lancers won a penalty corner right before the hooter went to mark the end of the