Jasjeet Kaur led the onslaught with three goals as India steamrolled novice Singapore 13-0 to open their women’s Asia Cup hockey campaign in style at the Queen Sikrit Sports Centre here on Thursday.

Jasjeet struck in the 39th, 53rd and 59th minutes while Saba Anjum, Mamta Kharab, Deepika Thakur, Surinder Kaur and Rani Rampal chipped in with two goals each. Saba Anjum connected Jasjeet Kaur’s drag-flick to open the scoring in the second minute itself off India’s second penalty corner and captain Surinder Kaur stretched the lead two minutes later from another penalty corner. Stung by the reverse, Singapore tried to tighten their defence, but to no avail as they conceded 15 penalty corners in the first session alone.

After a period of lull, the Indians went on a goalscoring spree, with Rani (19th minute) and Mamta (23rd min) sounding the board and Deepika scoring at the stroke of half time to put India up 5-0. The second half saw the Indian forwards completely dismantled the opposition defence, scoring goals at will. While there was some semblace of a fightback from Singapore in the first half, they virtually abandoned all play even as India pumped in five more goals to complete the rout.

However, there were still areas of concern, with penalty corner conversions one of them. India got a whopping 24 penalty corners but could convert only seven. kaushik, however, defended the performance. “We did not want to exhaust all the variations we have for fear of exposure.”

Earlier, title favourites Japan and Korea routed Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka 10-0 and 17-0 respectively. Malaysia also collected full points with a 3-0 win over hosts Thailand. The finalists of the event qualify for the 2010 World Cup.