Maharashtra vs Universities in opener of National Hockey

Jalandhar, Oct 20 (UNI) Maharashtra will take on Universities in the opening encounter of the Dainik Bhaskar-Tracer 62nd Senior National Hockey Championship for the Rangaswamy Cup at the Olympian Surjit Hockey stadium here tomorrow.

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh will inagurate the championship which is coming to Punjab after a gap of 25 years.

A total of 15 matches will be played on the first day of the championship at four centers in Jalandhar, PAU campus Ludhiana, GNDU campus, Amritsar and at the Namdhari sports club in Bhaini Sahib in Ludhiana district.

The other matches billed for Jalandhar are Karnataka vs MP, Vidharbha vs Mumbai and host Punjab vs Chattisgarh.

At Amritsar former champions Railways will clash against Pondicherry, while Chandigarh will take on Uttranchal and Madhya Bharat will meet Hyderabad.

At Bhaini Sahib, Himachal Pradesh will clash against Jharkhand in the first match, Indian Airlines will take on Nagaland, Tripura will meet Delhi and Uttar Pradesh will clash against Jammu and Kashmir.

At Ludhiana, Tamil Nadu meet Gujarat in the first match, while Bhopal will take on Bengal in the second. In the other matches at Ludhiana, Kerala will meet Haryana and it will be Services versus Mizoram in the last match.

The qualifying matches for the fourteen Associate Member teams will also begin in New Delhi tomorrow. The winners from each of the four pools will join eight teams in the Super League in Punjab. Some of the main teams in this group are Punjab and Sind Bank, CISF, Customs, Air India, BSF, FCI, ONGC and SAI.

As many as 68 matches will be played in the initial league phase in the championship from October 20 to 25. Thirty seven affiliated states and Union Territories have staked their claims for the top honours.

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