Murugappa Hockey: Railways, Army XI still in contention

CHENNAI - The Indian Railways and Army XI kept themselves in the hunt for a semi-final spot from pool A by defeating Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) 2-1 and Karnataka XI 7-6, respectively, in the 86th All-India MCC-Murugappa Gold Cup hockey tournament here Wednesday.

In the day’s last match, BPCL recorded their first win in three outings by outclassing Southern Railway 7-2 in pool B to take their tally to four points.

ONGC, having already qualified for the semi-finals with nine points, played virtually at half-pace and the Indian Railways helped themselves to the offering by scoring twice through Chinglin Sana (38th minute) and Jayakaran (65th) while Diwakar Ram was on target with his penalty corner drag-flick in the 39th minute for the vanquished.

Later, in a highly entertaining game, Army XI made the best of a poor umpiring decision that awarded them a penalty corner in the 69th minute which they converted for a 7-6 decision against Karnataka XI.

Army completed their league engagements with seven points, the same as Indian Railways who, however, have a game in hand.

Rajesh Lakra came good with a drag-flick for his fourth goal of the game after a brief hold-up when Karnataka players disputed umpire Anil Kumar’s decision to award a penalty corner and even threatened to walk-out.

Lakra had earlier scored thrice for the tournament’s hat-trick while SV Sunil (12th, 43rd) and Armugam (64th) were the other goal-getters.

For Karnataka, who trailed 2-4 and 3-5 and then led 6-5 with 12 minutes left, Muddappa (9th, 39th), Pradhan Somaiah (21st), Deepak Bijwad (47th), Nikkin Thimmaih (55th) and Nithin Thimmaiah (57th) scored.

The disputed penalty corner came following a right-wing move. The ball was hit into the circle where it rose off an Army stick and led to a Karnataka player committing an infringement, resulting in a penalty corner.

It was a match that exposed the weak rival defence that repeatedly fumbled and groped in the dark while providing acres of space for the forwards to do as they pleased. The goalkeeping too left a lot to be desired, but in terms of goals, the game offered plenty to the cheering spectators.

Two goals apiece by Amar Aiyamma (27th, 41st), Karamjit Singh (13th and 45th) and Jarnail Singh (34th and 65th) and one by Gurpreet Singh (39th) carried BPCL to a big win against local champions Southern Railway who were yet again out of depth at this level.

Incidentally, Southern Railway, who had failed to score even once in their previous three matches, finally found the target as Mahesh (14th, 57th) helped himself to a couple of goals that, however, had no impact on the flow of the game.