Indian Airlines retains cup

By Kamesh Srinivasan

Indian Airlines 3 -- Railways 0

Punjab 5 -- PSB 3

JAMMU, DEC. 16.When the stars strike, they leave you speechless. Defending champion Indian Airlines struck with such clinical precision that it left Railways gasping for breath in the final of the 60th national hockey championship at the K. K. Hakhu Stadium here on Saturday.

After being teased by the energetic defence of the 21- time champion, Indian Airlines landed three successive blows in the last 15 minutes, to proudly put its hand on the Rangaswamy Cup for the ninth time.

It was the class of Airlines that told in the end, against the painstaking labour of the Railways. After an intense struggle, skipper Dilip Tirkey-adjudged eventually as the `best fullback' despite his indifferent performance in this championship-cracked a penalty corner in the 22nd minute of the second half in finding the target, with a shot that was too quick for goalkeeper Ambuj Kumar Srivastava, to help Airlines sound the warning bell.

That goal eventually clinched Dilip Tirkey the honour of having scored the most number of goals in the final stage of the championship, as he pipped the Punjab captain Baljit Singh Dhillon. The Airlines could have struck a lot earlier but for messing up its only other penalty corner in the match, as Shakeel Ahmed failed to stop the push by Sameer Dad in the 22nd minute of the first half.

With the national anthem being sung three minutes after that goal-to announce the arrival of the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Girish Chandra Saxena-it looked curtains for the entertainment on an unusually gloomy afternoon.

However, Airlines would not listen, and celebrated with two spectacular goals in the last five minutes to leave its mark of class firmly stamped on the championship.

Mukesh Kumar loudly asked for a short pass on the right flank and got it from Altaf-ur Rehman, sped up and cracked a cross to Samer Dad, who in turn unleashed a sharp hit that was nicely deflected into the cage with a firm sweep by Brojen Singh. It was sheer magic, enacted with such a silken touch, that the capacity crowd cheered joyfully.

Before the crowd could recover its breath on watching the superb execution, Mukesh Kumar flicked home the team's third goal, off a cross from Altaf-ur Rehman who wrestled past the Railway defence with a solo run. It was time for the victory lap.

The tall centre-forward Altaf-ur Rehman was the trump card played by Airlines this day, and he clicked very well, despite having been played sparingly in the superleague. He was perhaps deliberately kept hungry for the big occasion, and it was he who helped Airlines devour Railways.

Lazarus Barla started well as a withdrawn inside-left, but he was soon pulled out, and the forwardline was shuffled a bit with Ravinder Singh taking the inside-right position and Sameer Dad moving to the left flank to operate with Brojen Singh and Virender Singh.

It was only when Altaf-ur Rehman arrived in place of Brojen, that the Airlines forwardline came alive, and took a menacing look. Airlines aligned for the final onslaught when it moved out Ravinder and brought in Brojen.

There was frustration in the Airlines ranks earlier as it could not crack the Railway goal. It was no wonder that Mukesh Kumar collected a yellow card for questioning umpire Satinder Sharma, after a smart run; and a bit of rough play saw Dilip Tirkey injuring Chander Pal on the face with a snap hit, and Virender Singh catching Anup Tirkey square on the knee.

The injuries were accidental, but Railways could not recover from the psychological blow. The team had tried hard, especially through its five penalty corners, but was unable to match Airlines.

The Airlines halfline was quite energetic with Shakeel Ahmed, Bimal Lakra and Sanjay Bisht doing a compact job. Fullbacks Dilip Tirkey and Rajnish Mishra were tested by the Railway forwards who made repeated raids initially, but goalkeeper Ashish Ballal was rarely challenged because of the strong Airlines defence. But whenever a shot was taken at the goal, the seasoned Ashish Ballal was his cool self, in swatting away the attempt, with his usual contempt.

It was sheer lack of experience that stopped the young Railway team from giving a better account of itself. Dawood Suleiman, Lalit Ekka, Subal Kumar Barla and Chander Pal were a constant source of threat for Airlines, but they could never execute their threat.

With a pronounced defence, Railways operated with four halfbacks, Satish Kumar, Ajay Bharti, Jagmohan Singh and J. R. Natarajan, and the foursome had their limitations, in terms of ideas and skill. Fullbacks Bikramjit Singh and Anup Tirkey were confidence personified, but after the Railway goal had fallen once, they seemed to have lost heart. Goalkeeper Ambuj Srivastava was of course, well and truly outplayed.

Meanwhile, in the match for the third place, Punjab downed Punjab and Sind Bank 5-3 after leading 3-1 at the interval. V. P. Singh, Gurmeet Singh, Jugraj Singh scored the first three goals, and Surjit Singh struck twice in the second half, on being put through by Daljit Singh.

The bank team scored through Rajinder Singh, Sandeep Singh Ghuman and Tejbir Singh. It could have entertained hopes of a victory, but for missing a chance for a 2-2 equaliser, as Kanwalpreet Singh failed to beat goalkeeper Teja Singh with a penalty stroke.

There was some consolation for Punjab and Sind Bank, as Baljit Singh Chandi was adjudged the `best forward' of the championship. The `best halfback' award went to S. S. Gill of Chandigarh and the `best goalkeeper' choice was K. N. Subbaiah of Jammu and Kashmir.

Arjun Halappa of Karnataka was selected for the `most promising player' award, instituted by Olympian M. P. Ganesh in memory of his son Aiyappa who had died in an accident. The fairplay trophy was bagged by Tamil Nadu, and the host Jammu and Kashmir, which qualified from the preliminary league for the first time was adjudged the `most up-coming team'.

The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, gave away the prizes along with the chief guest, the Governor, Mr. Girish Chandra Saxena. The secretary of the Indian Hockey Federation, Mr. Jothi Kumaran, stated that the list of probables for the World Cup qualifying tournament would be finalised after a meeting on December 19.

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