Sameer Dad stars in Indian Airlines win

New Delhi, Oct 3 (UNI) A fine brace by Olympian Sameer Dad helped fancied Indian Airlines beat ONGC 3-2 in the 17th Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey tournament here today.

Dad scored in the 23rd and 31st minutes to give his team a comfortable 2-0 lead at half time.

ONGC managed to reduce the margin in the 50th minute through Amarjeet Pratap, but veteran Olympian Dhanaraj Pillay made it 3-1 in the 59th minute.

Amarjeet scored again four minutes before the final hooter to revive another chance to restore parity, but it was too late and Airlines defence stood forth for the remainder of the match.

In another match, BPCL defeated Border Security Force (BSF) 3-1 with Amar Aiyamma scoring twice in two minutes (48th and 49th minutes).

Pundlik scored the other goal for BPCL in the 44th minute while Marinus Lakra reduced the margin for BSF in the 51st minute.

In the matches played later in the day, Namdhari XI were held to a 2-2 draw by Indian Oil. Indian Oil were the first to score through Bikramjeet Singh in the fourth minute but Gurpreet Singh put one past for the Namdharis in the 31st minute to make it 1-1 at half time.

In the second half as well, Indian Oil opened the scoring with a 39th minute Bikramjeet goal before Namdharis pulled one back through Cheeyanna in the 51st minute.

Meanwhile, Air India prevailed 4-3 over Punjab National bank (PNB) in a closely fought match. Air India were trailing 1-2 at the break before coming back strongly in the second half to win the match.

PNB scored first in the second minute through Prem Kumar before Air India equalised with a 10th minute goal by skipper Len Aiyappa.

PNB again found the net in the 16th minute as Jitender scored the first of his two goals.

In the second half, Jitender further consolidated PNB's lead by scoring in the 37th minute before Air India banged in three goals to win the thrilling match.

Gaurav Tokhi opened the floodgates with his 46th minute strike and Joga Singh (49th minute) and Girish Pimple (62nd) also scored as Ar India completed their comeback with the win.

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