East Zone Inter University (Men) Hockey Tournament
M.G.Kashividyapeeth, Purvanchal, Sambalpur, Ranchi Qualified for All India Varsity Tournament

Satish Sharma

ROURKELA (Odisha): M.G.Kashividyapeetha, Varanasi, V.B.S.Purvanchal University, Jaunpur, Ranchi University and host Sambalpur University have qualified for the All India Inter University Hockey Championship to be played here from 18th to 23rd December. These four teams by virtue of emerging as the top teams in their respective groups in the ongoing East Zone Inter University (Men) Tournament have earned the places for All India Tournament.

The East Zone Varsity hockey tournament which was inaugurated here at Sports Hostel ground, Panposh on 3rd December, have so far produced the one sided matches. All the four teams registered convincing victories against their opponents in first knock-out stage of the tournament.

On the inaugural day, 3rd December, Din Dayal Upadhayay University, Gorakhpur beat Guru Ghasidas university, Bilaspur 8-0. Md.Naseem (2), Jafar Iqbal (2), Kamlesh, Anjum Tarique, Shankar and Abdul Quadir were the scorers for the winners.

Bijay Lakra and A.N.Bihari were the umpires.

On the second day (4th December), Banaras Hindu Universty, Varanasi drubbed Berhampur University 10-0 while D.D.U. Universty,Gorakhpur knocked out Universty of Kolkata by registerin 6-1 victory. For BHU Md.Ahmed scored 4 goals, Amit scored 3 goals while Shankar, Arun and Chandra contributed a goal each. In this match Bijay Lakra and A.N.Bihari were the umpires.
For Gorakhpur Md.Naseem scored 3 goals while Sadique, Shankar and Binayak other three goals. Abhijit was the lone scorer for Kolkata team. Amulya Behera and Fabaian Samad did the umpiring in the match.

On 5th December four matches were played. In first match host Sambalpur University toyed with Rewa University by drubbing them 17-1. For the winners Irshaad scored 7 goals, Imran scored 3 goals, Amulya scored 2 goals and Azam, Sukhram, Tansif, Anand, and Amit scored remaining goals.

Amulaya Behera and A.Q.Khan were the umpires.

In 2nd match Ranchi University stopped the further progress of DDU, Gorakhpur by beating them 3-1. Vimal (2) and Soma Hemram (1) scored goals for Ranchi while Vikash Sharma scored the lone goal for Gorakhpur.

Peter Tirkey and Fabian Samad were the umpires.

In the 3rd match of the day VBS Purvanchal Univeerssity, Jaunpur ousted BHU, Varanasi, by scoring a 3-1 voctory over them. Rahul, Triveni and Imran scored a goal piece for the Purvanchal team while Manoj Kumar was the lone scorer for BHU.
Amulya Behera and A.Q.Khan were the umpires.

In the 4th match of the day M.G.Kashividyapeetha, Varanasi routed Ravi Shankar University, Raipur 15-0. Abhishek (3), Harikesh (2), Jameel (2), Deepak (2), Sunil (2), Javed (1), Vivek (1), Farzand (1) were scorers for the winners.

Bijay Lakra and S.Toppo were the umpires.

From today (7th December) the qualified 4 teams will meet each other in the second round robin league phase of the tooournament to decide the champions of the tournament. In the tournament 14 teams had entered into the fray but three teams- Utkal University (Bhubaneswar), Binoba Bhave University (Hazaribagh) and Veer Kunwar Singh University (Ara) did not turn up for their matches.