Aind leads Army to victory over BPCL 3-2; lift Bombay Gold Cup

Mumbai, Apr 29 (UNI) Army XI captain Cyprind Aind scored a brace, the second three minutes from the final hooter to help his team score a superb comeback from behind win to beat Bharat Petroleum 3-2 in the final of the 44th Bombay Gold Cup hockey tournament played at the Mahindra stadium here today.

Army XI with this win pocketed Rs 1.25 lakh as prize money, while Bharat Petroleum had to be satisfied with Rs 75,000 as the runners-up.

The evenly contested match, saw Bharat Petroleum seize the early initiative as they took the lead in as early as the fifth minute of match through Tushar Khandekar. The move was initaited down the right flank by Hari Prasad who then relayed the ball onto Pundalik Bellary inside the circle who in turn passed to the unmarked Khandekar for him to tap the ball in and give his team the lead.

In the very next minute another move initiated down the right flank by Hari Prasad could have put Bharat Petroleum in the driver's seat with a 2-0 lead, but Pundalik Bellary who received a superb pass in the box could manage a weak shot which was padded away to safety by the Army goal keeper P T Rao.

The Army side which was at the receiving end all this while equalised against the run of play in the 14th minute on a counter attack. The ball came to Dhananjay Mahadik whose shot was deflected into the goal by Cyprind Aind to level things up.

On the stroke of half time Army could have gone into the lead but a pass from the right by Anil Kujur saw S Suresh failing to conect with an open goal in front of him.

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