Railways cruises into last eight

Shreedutta Chidananda

Railways claimed a convincing 3-1 win over Uttar Pradesh to advance to the last eight of the second Hockey India Senior National championships at the MEG grounds here on Friday. Powered by a brace from Sanjay Bir Singh and Victo Singh’s superb second-half strike, Railways prevailed over an opponent that did not threaten to take the upper hand at any stage.

Sanjay put Railways ahead after Chinglensana dribbled away from two players to find Malak Singh on the outside. The latter centred for Sanjay to tap in. Uttar Pradesh wasted two penalty corners. The third, however, was to prove fruitful. Abhishek Singh’s drag flick came off the crossbar, but Chandan Singh was on hand to knock the ball in.

A minute from the break, Chinglensana drove down the inside-left channel again to feed Sanjay. The latter made space and rifled his shot into the roof of the net.

On the other side of the interval, Railways’s Victo beat the goalkeeper with a fine shot from the edge of the area.

The results: Pool A: Bhopal 2 (Irfan Ali 45, Merajuddin 66) bt Bengal 0.

Pool B: Karnataka 9 (Pundalik Bellary 24, V.R. Raghunath 27, Vikram Kanth 32, M.K. Mudappa 35, Shanker Patil 44, P.L. Thimmanna 49, S.K. Uthappa 50, Nikin Thimmaiah 52, Nitin Thimmaiah 63) bt Delhi 0; Andhra Pradesh 15 (Kishore Krishna 1, 20, 27, Ajay Babu 8, 38, 39, 69, Ramesh Krishna 12, 18, 50, Sandeep Raju 28, 51, 45, Avinash Chindrapu 34, 41) bt Mizoram 3 (Lalthakima 58, Lalduhawma 60, Lalringheta 61).

Pool D: Jharkhand 15 (Diwakar Ram 20, 37, 39, 49, 55, 60, 67, Ajitesh Roy 31, 52, Wilson Minz 7, Anil Xaxa 10, Banmali Xess 25, Birendra Lakra 29, Shashi Topno 32, John Minz 69) bt Goa 0; SSB 5 (Joychandra Singh 10, S. Romikumar Singh 20, 44, Santikumar Sharma 32, H. Surchandra Singh 48) bt Uttarakhand 1 (Prakash Singh Mehra 65).

Pool F: Assam 6 (Magalinga Swami 11, Ratan Mutana 16, Rajesh Boro 25, 50, K.D. Cariappa 34,40) bt Tripura 0; Railways 3 (Sanjay Bir Singh 15, 34, Victo Singh 42) bt Uttar Pradesh 1 (Chandan Singh 22).

Pool H: Manipur 4 (Jayantakumar Meitei 17, 55, Gangamba 19, 36) bt Combined Universities 3 (Barkat Singh 25, 42, Hansraj 32); Bihar 6 (Riazuddin 14, 46, Niraj Tigga 35, 50, Gabriel Herenj 37, Anup Topno 53) bt Andaman & Nicobar 0.