The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Indian Airlines gets the better of PIA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 01, 2006

Sport

Sport - Hockey

Indian Airlines gets the better of PIA

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: A tennis-like 6-3 scoreline may reflect an exaggerated margin of victory for Indian Airlines over Pakistan International Airlines but for the large crowd at the Shivaji Stadium, this pool II super league match of the All India Maharaja Ranjit Singh hockey tournament provided all the thrills it had come for.

Earlier, in pool I, Deepak Thakur (3), Bharat Chingaria (2), Hamza Mujathaba and Inderjit Chadda contributed to Indian Oil's 7-1 victory over a young Air-India which had equalised through Davinder Kumar in the 20th minute.

Though PIA bounced back from an early damage caused by Dhanraj Pillai's reverse flick to score through Ali Raza and a penalty corner strike from Shafqat Malik, Airlines settled the issue with three goals in successive minutes of the second half.

Though each team converted two of the eight penalty corners that came its way, Airlines managed to break away in great style. After Lazrus Barla's penalty corner hit in the 45th minute found Girish Pimple's stick on its way to the roof of the net and made it 2-2, Airlines's hero of the day Brojen Singh put the side ahead in the 54th minute. Brojen, from the left, latched on to the ball after Dhanraj had done all the hard work by moving in from the right flank.

In the thick of it

Brojen could have been credited with another goal off the very next minute when he again combined with Dhanraj and pierced the defence with a firm hit. Gurvinder Singh only made sure that the ball stayed in the desired direction by tapping in from close.

Immediately thereafter, Airlines made it 5-2 by cashing in on PIA's desperation to find goals by pushing its defenders upfront. A penalty corner off a counter attack saw Barla on target.

PIA did manage to strike again when Ali Raza scored his second goal of the match, this time following a penalty corner. Joga Singh completed the scoreline following a solo-run two minutes from close.

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