Railways, Hyderabad qualify for final phase

By Abhijit Sen Gupta

HYDERABAD, NOV. 27. Indian Railways and Hyderabad have qualified for the final phase of the 60th senior National hockey championship which is to be played in Jammu in December. On the penultimate day of the Group A league here on Wednesday, Railways beat ITBP 5-2, Hyderabad defeated Andhra 4-0 and SAIL put it past Bihar 3- 1.

Railways and Hyderabad will now clash in the last match on Thursday to decide the Group winner and runner-up. Regardless of the result of that match, both teams will qualify since the top two are eligible to enter the final phase.

Anand Ratna Kumar scored a hat-trick for Hyderabad which put up a commendable display against Andhra. The match started forty minutes late owing to non availability of electricity needed for water jets used to water the astroturf.

Initially Andhra was able to launch some good attacks. But it was Hyderabad which forced three penalty corners within the first quarter. The first goal came off the fourth penalty corner. Hyderabad tried out an indirect variation and Paul Moses passed to L. Ramesh who slammed the ball in through a host of defenders inside the semicircle with the goalkeeper unsighted by the players.

At this stage the Hyderabad front liners were in full flow. Paul Moses, Anand Ratna Kumar and Dung Dung were creating havoc and the reliable Elia provided fine support.

Hyderabad's second goal came in the 24th minute following a beautiful move between Ramesh, Elia and Ratna Kumar. The ball was passed around fluently before Ratna banged home with a spectacular reversed stick hit.

After the change of ends Hyderabad showed that its hunger for goals was not yet appeased. It continued to attack relentlessly and got its third goal in the 44th minute when Paul Moses worked the ball up the centre, passed to Dung Dung who in turn tapped it across to Ratna to score.

Between the 57th and 60th minutes Andhra got a series of four penalty corners and a long corner but was unable to convert any. On the other hand Hyderabad managed to get in one more when Ratna Kumar completed his hat-trick as he deflected the ball home off a pass by Dung Dung.

Railways registered a comfortable victory over ITBP with the goal scorers being M. Ekka (19th minute), Sanjeev Kumar Singh (27th), Chanderpal (28th), Bikramjit Singh (47th) and Briznev Singh (off a stroke in the 57th minute). ITBP scored in the 51st minute through Raman Kumar and in the 61st minute through Immanuel Nuel.

In the other match, SAIL scored through Suman Kumar (17th and 42nd minutes) and Satwinder Singh (stroke in the 21st minute). For Bihar, S. Nag scored in the 35th minute.

Thursday's matches:Bihar vs ITBP (7-30 a.m.), SAIL vs Andhra (1 p.m.) and Railways vs Hyderabad (3-30 p.m.).

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Facile win augurs well for FCI
Next     : A memorable day for Hewitt