Western Railway rout PSEB to enter semi-final league stage

Mumbai, Apr 20: Chandrakesh and Amarjeet Singh helped themselves to braces as reigning champions Western Railway stormed into the semi-final league by routing Punjab State Electricity Board (Patiala) 6-1 in the 44th Bombay Gold Cup hockey tournament here today.

Also advancing to the semifinal league phase were Bharat Petroleum who brought to an end the advance of Hockey Bandra by 3-1, while in another match Bhopal XI edged out Chandigarh XI 7-5 via the tie-breaker to advance to the fourth round.

In the match between Western Railway and PSEB, the former took some time to settle down and taking advantage of this PSEB shot into the lead in the seventh minute of the match through Kuljit Singh.

The goal was a result of a move down the right following which the ball found Kuljit who made no mistake in sounding the boards to put his team ahead.

Western Railway stung by this reverse started attacking the rival citadel and two good moves saw Shivender Singh miss two clear cut chances in the space of two minutes and failed to restore parity.

However the Mumbai outfit continued to make move after move but their forwards failed to convert any of those chances.

Finally in the 32nd minute following a long corner, Chandrakesh dribbled past two defenders and then unleashed a powerful reverse hit from the top of the box for the equaliser.

Bhadoriya converted his team's seventh penalty corner in the 54th minute to put Western Railway up 4-1.

In the 60th minute a good move by Jayesh Jadhav who cut in from the left and passed the ball to an unmarked Manish Sahai who tapped the ball home as Western went up 5-1.

The final nail in the coffin for PSEB came in the 65th minute when Chandrakesh completed his brace.

The match between Bhopal XI and Chandigarh XI saw Chandigarh XI take the lead in the 25th minute when Satbir Singh converted his side's second penalty corner.

Bhopal XI came back strongly in the second half and goals from Vejay and Syed Faisal Ali in the 37th and 66th minute put them ahead 2-1. However, with just two minutes for the final whistle Satbir Singh completed his brace and also restored parity to force a penalty shoot-out.

In the penalty shoot-out Mehraj Uddin, Rajesh Guleria, Altaf-ur-Rehman, Irfan Ali and Asad Kamal converted for Bhopal, while for Chandigarh XI only Gaurav Tokhi, Amit Bharghav and Vishal Lal converted, while Satbir Singh, scorer of a brace in the normal time, missed giving Bhopal XI a win by a 7-5 margin.

In the first match of the day Bharat Petroleum proved too strong for Bandra XI and goals by Len Aiyappa (a brace) and Prabhdeep Singh put them 3-0 ahead by the 38th minute.

Hockey Bandra got back a consolation goal in the 66th minute when Vikram Pillay converted a penalty corner to get on the scoresheet.

UNI