The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Sultans takes on confident Hi-Fliers

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Wednesday, Jan 26, 2005

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Sport - Hockey

Sultans takes on confident Hi-Fliers

By V.V. Subrahmanyam

HYDERABAD, JAN. 25. Local favourite Hyderabad Sultans take on confident Bangalore Hi-Fliers in a crucial Tier I match of the inaugural Premier Hockey League championship under lights tomorrow night.

Stung by the 2-3 defeat two nights ago, Dilip Tirkey-led Sultans is determined to make amends. Coach Narindrapal Singh says that they will definitely try not to repeat mistakes that gave the Hi-Fliers a lot of freedom on top of the `D'.

"From our point of view, we will be keen to force as many penalty-corners as possible," he added. This is obvious as they have in their line-up Pakistani dreaded drag-flicker Sohail Abbas.

But, what surprised the Sultans was the conversion rate of Len Aiyappa, who recorded the first hat-trick of the event. And naturally, Bangalore coach Ramesh Parameshwaran is enthusiastic about the form of his penalty-corner specialist in this League so far. "It is just the kind of show we were expecting from him," he said.

The captain Arjun Halappa says the credit should go to goalkeeper Bharath Chetri for blocking the second penalty-corner hit taken by sohail Abbas in the previous match.

One thing which is certain is that tomorrow's match will be yet another exciting contest what with Bangalore outfit having the maximum number of forwards of all the teams and Sultans boasting of the best defence line-up.

The Tier II matches also resume tomorrow with the favourite Chandigarh Dynamos, with five wins from five matches, most likely to run over Imphal Rangers which recorded just one win so far and in the second match it will be an affair between the weaklinks in the Tier-Lucknow Nawabs and Bengal Tigers.

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