Sultans edge past Shers

Defending champions Hyderabad Sultans survived some anxious moments before beating Sher-e-Jalandhar 5-3 via tie-breaker in the Premier Hockey League in Chandigarh on Tuesday.

Both the teams were tied to a 1-1 draw in the regulation, silver and golden extra times.

With this triumph, Hyderabad Sultans earned two points, bringing their points tally to eight from six matches. It was their third win.

Sher-e-Jalandhar have so far collected seven points from six matches.

In the regulation period, drag-flick expert Didar Singh put Hyderabad Sultans into the lead converting a penalty-corner in the 14th minute but Olympian Prabhjot Singh restored parity for the Jalandhar side in the 38th minute.

Prabhjot scored on the rebound after a Baljit Singh penalty-corner shot was saved by Hyderabad Sultans goalkeeper Salman Akbar of Pakistan. Prabhjot pounced on the rebound and shot into the goal to fox the Sultans defence.

After the silver and golden extra time failing to produce any goal, the match went into tie-breaker.

Hyderabad Sultans started with Didar Singh converting his stroke while Shakeel Abbasi, Sameer Dad and Jorge Lombi were also bang on target. Only Amit Srivastava pushed his stroke over the crosspiece into the stands.

Sher-e-Jalandhar had a disastrous beginning as Kanwalpreet's push was saved by Salman Akbar. Though Ajmer Singh and Harpal Singh scored, off-colour Gagan Ajit Singh's push was too weak to beat Sultans' custodian Salman Akbar and they lost the match 3-5.

Sultans' goalkeeper Salman Akbar was declared the Lion of the Match and received a cheque of Rs 10,000.

- UNI