The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : IOC, Army XI make it to semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 10, 2005

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Sport - Hockey

IOC, Army XI make it to semifinals

KOLKATA, APRIL 9. Former champion Army XI and title contender Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) moved into the semifinals of the Indian Oil all-India 110th Beighton Cup hockey tournament here on Saturday.

Army XI, playing in Group B, outplayed Bombay XI 4-1 in its second quarterfinal league match at the Mohammedan Sporting to register its second win and collect six points so far. Army XI would play Punjab Police in the final league game on Sunday.

Punjab Police, which was shocked by Bombay XI in the first encounter, crushed Tamil Nadu XI 6-1 for its first win to earn three points.

At the end of the penultimate round of league matches, Punjab Police, Tamil Nadu and Bombay had three points each. For Punjab Police even a draw is sufficient to enter the semifinals and eliminate the other two State outfits.

IOC drew with Corps of Signals 2-2 to reach the knockout stage with five points. The defeat put the Signals out of the competition. BSF would play Karnataka in the final league match of Group A on Sunday. A draw would suffice for BSF.

The Punjab cops shocked the Tamil Nadu XI with open and attacking game to score four goals in the 6th (Jagbir Singh), 21st (Harmik Singh), 30th and 45th (Satwinder Singh) to kill all the hopes of the Southern State.

Tamil Nadu's consolation goal came in the 50th minute through A.J. Heartlin but two more goals in the 61st and 70th by Avtar Singh and Satwinder Singh respectively sealed the game for the cops.

CoS, needing to win against IOC to stay in the meet, was always ahead but the latter's resilience enabled it to restore parity twice to draw the game. Navin Lakra's fifth minute penalty corner conversion gave Signals the lead but in the next minute IOC equalised through Kamalesh Kumar with a field goal. Again CoS moved ahead through Rajesh Kumar's strike in the 30th minute. Ten minutes later Kamalesh Kumar scored off a penalty corner to give the team the much needed point.

Bombay XI began in a good note striking early through Rashid Ali's field goal in the sixth minute. This goal seemed to have galvanised the Army team as it hit the target in quick succession in the 31st (Ignace Tirkey), 52nd (Suresh Kumar), 54th (Sunil Ekka) and 62nd (Chandrasekhar Xalxo) to complete the rout. — Our Special Correspondent

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