The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : IA to meet PSB in final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 31, 2005

Sport

Sport - Hockey

IA to meet PSB in final

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Indian Airlines will meet Punjab and Sind Bank in the final of the Nehru hockey tournament on Saturday. In Friday's semifinals, Airlines beat Namdhari XI 2-0 while Punjab and Sind Bank rallied from a goal down against Indian Oil to prevail at 2-1.

Off-the-field incidents having dominated the scene in the middle of the afternoon's programme, with Indian Oil and Namdhari players coming to blows before the second semifinal started, there was nothing much else to talk about this day.

Namdhari players and supporters clashed with Indian Oil players at the warm-up ground. The free-for-all ensued in which the Namdhari team's supporters also joined before calm was restored thanks to the intervention of some officials and Indian Airlines coach Harendra Singh and Dhanraj Pillay.

By the time police was called and further reinforcements brought in, the warring groups were separated, though a section of the crowd remained agitated and threatened to disrupt the second semifinal.

Police said that the injured IOC players were being taken for medical examination before registering an FIR. The IOC coach, Joaquim Carvalho said that he would be pressing for an FIR and his team would not play Saturday's third-placed match with Namdhari XI as a protest against the manner in which his players were beaten up.

The second semifinal of the day between IOC and Punjab and Sind Bank was better contested. The spring was missing in Deepak Thakur's moves (one of the injured players) on Friday. Prabhjot Singh, the other India star, had the lone goal just before the break, trapping a deflection from defender Sandeep Singh to slam home.

Sandeep made a total mess of his trapping when Inderjeet centred the ball and was immediately pulled out.

Ajit Pal Singh found the equaliser with a high reverse-hit in the ninth minute off a cross from Rajwinder Singh and Navpreet Singh converted a penalty stroke five minutes later to give the lead to PSB. The stroke was awarded by Virendra Bahadur when Jaswinder Singh's foot blocked a penalty corner drive by Davinder Singh.

In control

Indian Airlines was not really in full flow against Namdhari XI but struck a goal on either side of the break through penalty corner expert Sandeep Singh. In the first half when Sandeep struck in the 18th minute.

Sandeep Singh found the net in the 11th minute on resumption.

The final will be played at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport