Punjab beat Karnataka 4-2 to reach Super League

Jalandhar, Oct 26 (UNI) Good performance by up and coming Jarnail Singh and Amit Singh (two goals each) supported well by Kanwalpreet and Baljit Dhillon enabled hosts Punjab to defeat Karnataka by 4-2 and advance into the Super league round in the 62nd National Hockey Championship here today.

Both the teams began on an aggressive note contesting hard against each other but Punjab gradually secured an upper hand.

Jarnail Singh and international Prabhdeep Singh made a move in the 13th minute. Prabhdeep passed the ball to Jarnail in the left flank from where the latter made no no mistake in sounding the rivals' board (1-0).

Jarnail Singh who was playing well made another solo effort to push the ball in the goal but the same deflected back after hitting the bar of the goal post. Soon after shortly before the half time Jarnail made another attempt to score and this time he passed the ball to Amit Singh who in turn successfully landed the same in the goal to give the hosts a 2-0 comfortable lead.

Soon after the half time break Jarnail Singh struck again in the 36th minute and posted his second spectacular field goal(3-0). At this point of time, Karnataka tried to mount pressure and made some tricky advancements in the rival D but most of those lacked kill. In the process, they secured a penalty corner in the 48th minute and the trusted winger Laxman Rao made no no mistake in converting the same into goal(1-3).

In the 55th minute Amit Singh scored another goal on rebound shot on a penalty corner.

In the dying moments, Karnataka exerted pressure but their Laxman Rao succeeded only in narrowing the margin by scoring a flawless field goal in 65th minute(2-4).

With this win Punjab had entered the super league round of the tournament.

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