Another emphatic win for Tamil Nadu

By S. Thyagarajan

CHENNAI, NOV. 30. A third win in as many matches pushed Tamil Nadu to the threshold of a spot in the quarterfinals in Pool C of the National hockey championship at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here this evening. The host led 3-0 at half time.

What Tamil Nadu was looking forward to from this encounter was a big margin to boost the tally of goals as to cover up all the gaps before entering the last 16 super-league in Jammu from December 8. But the Kerala outfit was in no mood to concede this and fought gallantly, which, unfortunately was masked by the 4-0 margin.

For over 20 minutes in the first half, the Kerala defence frustrated every effort of the Tamil Nadu attack. Not all the guiles and wiles of Senthil, or the thrusts of Prabhakar could break the resolve of the rival defence for whom goal-keeper Krishnakumar was prominent.

Mention must also be made of the splendid goal-line save by full back Sayo from a full-blooded drive by Dinesh Nayak from a penalty corner. Earlier, Krishnakumar had effected a lovely save off an attempt by Prabhakaran from a cross by Gopinath.

Without distracting from the merit of Kerala's performance in the defence, it must be said that the Tamil Nadu frontline was inadequate when it came to finishing. Quite a few openings were frittered away and some needlessly fancy shots were ventured into without success.

However, late in the first half, Dinesh Nayak slammed in the lead from a penalty corner. Encouraged by this, the frontline fashioned a few neat sallies with Senthil on the right flashing into the picture repeatedly. Gopinath and Vinod Kumar in the mid- field, directed by the Olympian Thirumalvalavan, kept the frontline on its toes.

Close on half-time, Radhakrishnan, the hard working defender moved up all the way to enhance the lead, and this was further consolidated by Gopinath off a pass from Thirumalavalvan. The pattern was somewhat similar with the Kerala defence holding on valiantly for over a quarter of an hour before Senthil succeeded in piercing through to hoist the fourth goal.

The frontline work for Kerala was minimal, thanks to the excessive emphasis on defence. Only late in the day was there a semblance of attack getting into the groove.

The first penalty corner surfaced two minutes from end but nothing came out of this award.

This was Kerala's third reverse in as many matches. Tamil Nadu leads the table with nine points from three victories with a tally of 15 goals against nil, while Air India has 15-1 aggregate from two matches. FCI, the third team in contention for the top two places has six points with a goal difference of + 3 (10-7).

Friday's matches: Kerala v Madhya Pradesh (2 p.m.); Air India v FCI (4 p.m.).

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