Sport - Hockey

Visakhapatnam pockets title

HYDERABAD, JULY 31. Visakhapatnam fought back from a two-goal deficit to down Chittoor 3-2 in the final of the inaugural Andhra inter-district super league hockey championship at Begumpet Police Stadium here on Saturday.

In a keenly-contested match, it was Chittoor which shot into lead in the sixth minute througha penalty-corner conversion by Aditya. Within three minutes, it was leading 2-0 as Yuvakishore converted another penalty-corner. That was the phase when one thought the Vizag defence was under pressure. But to its credit goalkeeper Ramji came up with a couple of good saves to ensure that Vizag had something to fight.

Consequently, Vizag's forwardline of Abdul Rehman, Ramesh and Satyanarayana launched a series of counter attacks. Vizag soon reduced the margin with G.V.S. Prasad latching on to a neat pass from the left-flank to find the target with a deceptive, carpet drive.

After the break, there was a sharp shower forcing an interruption. Perhaps, this had a bearing on the Chiittoor forwardline of Rajesh, Vinod Raj, Ramesh and Choudhary Babu for they suddenly looked disjointed. And worse, it even wasted a penalty-stroke awarded by referee Ramesh Kutty when Gopala Raju's feeble hit was well blocked by goalkeeper Ramji diving to his right.

That provided the real spark for Vizag, which went on the offensive from then on. And, it was successful in equalising the score through Shankar's hard and clean penalty-corner conversion in the 54th minute.

Vizag soon took the lead thanks to G.V.S. Prasad who trapped a perfect centre from the left-flank only to deflect the ball into the goal.

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