Punjab, Karnataka clash in pre-quarters

Hosts Punjab will take on Karnataka and Chattisgarh face Mumbai in the pre-quarter-final knock-out stage of the 62nd Senior National Hockey Championship, at Olympian Surjit Hockey stadium, in Jalandhar, on Thursday.

In Wednesday's matches, Madhya Pradesh edged out Manipur in a well-contested encounter 2-1 and Bihar registered its first victory in the league stage, defeating Chhattisgarh 2-1.

In an inconsequential match between Madhya Pradesh and Manipur, Asad Khan (19th minute) scored off a calculated pass from Hasan Ali to put the central Indian side one up.

In the 60th minute, Manipur netted the equaliser through Padeba's field goal.

But seven minutes later, Asad shot home for a second time to clinch victory for his team.

With the victory, Madhya Pradesh have six points from four outings and are in third place in Pool C.

In the other match, Bihar took lead in the 11th minute when Prejan Barla scored a field goal.

Three minutes later, Chhattisgarh equalised through A Quadeer.

Bihar regained the lead in the 18th minute, when Xavier Gidh's was on target.

In the second half, Chhattisgarh made some good attacks but could not breach the strong Bihar defence.

Tamil Nadu and Services won their respective pre-quarter-final encounters to qualify for the Super League stage.

Tamil Nadu beat Haryana 2-1 while Services defeated Bengal 5-3.

After wasting two penalty-corners (18th and 23rd minutes), Tamil Nadu opend their account in the 25th minute through Aswin, who shot home after Haryana goalkeeper Ankit charged out to stop the ball and fell down.

After the change of ends, Tamil Nadu had a close shave as Satish Kumar's sizzler flew over the post narrowly. However, in the 37th minute, he succeeded in restoring parity.

Tamil Nadu then made several raids and earned three penalty-corners in quick succession, but poor execution failed them.

Tamil Nadu got their sixth penalty corner in the 53rd minute and Aswin Balasubramanian converted it to clinch victory.

In the second pre-quarter-final clash, Services began the proceedings on a fast pace and pumped in two goals through A K Kiro (3rd minute) and Suresh Kumar (6th).

They extended the lead through Suresh Kumar just a few seconds before the lemon break (3-0).

In the early minutes of the second session, Anil Ekka pulled one back for Bengal and again sounded the board in the 37th minute reduce the margin to 2-3.

However, an unperturbed Services netted another goal in the 39th minute through Suresh Kumar, who completed his hat-trick. They consolidated the lead (5-2) in the 48th minute through Elaizer Lakra.

In the 53rd minute, Jacarias Bhuggra of Bengal found the target through a penalty-corner conversion but that was not enough to earn victory for his team.