PSB, Air India enter semi-finals

Punjab and Sind Bank, Jalandhar, and Air India, Mumbai, registered narrow victories to enter the semi-finals in the Bombay Gold Cup hockey tournament at the Mahindra stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The bankmen rallied magnificently, after conceding a ninth minute goal, to beat local outfit Bharat Petroleum 2-1 while defending champions Air India sidelined Central Industrial Security Force, Delhi, 6-4 via the tie-breaker after the teams were level 2-2 at full-time.

BPCL took the lead in the ninth minute when centre-forward Saurab Bishnoi converted their second penalty-corner. But the bankmen restored parity eight minutes later when Sanjeev Kumar Dang found the mark, also from a penalty-corner. Mandeep Singh Ghuman's goal from a melee in the 24th minute turned out to be the match-winner.

In the Air India-CISF match, the former were sitting pretty with a solitary goal lead at half-time but took things a bit easy in the second half, which allowed their opponents to equalise and take the match into the tie-breaker.

With just a minute to go for half-time, Air India forced ahead when centre half Davinder Kumar scored from an excellent set-piece following their third penalty-corner.

In the 50th minute, the local team increased the margin through international Vikram Pillay, who converted a penalty stroke after his stick was checked by CISF centre half Sushil Kumar inside the circle.

However, CISF staged a grand recovery and scored twice within the space of six minutes to force the tie-breaker.

In the 27th minute of the second half, CISF pulled one back through Xaxa, who tapped the ball home after receiving a pass from Sushil Kumar.

Xaxa scored again six minutes later from a pass by Bharat Kumar.

In the tie-breaker, Vikram Pillay, T Kullu, Roshan Tete and Surinder Kundu scored for Air India, with Tushar Khandekar missing, while for CISF, only Xaxa and Edmond Kerketta could find the mark as Air India goalkeeper Adrian D'Souza did well to save the pushes of Ekka and Parmvir.

Photographs: JEWELLA C MIRANDA

Earlier reports
Tata's, Indian Airlines enter semi-finals
Air India, Punjab and Sind Bank in quarter-finals
Indian Airlines, Tata's storm into last 8