History beckons Saket School as it plays its second successive Nehru Dhyan Chand Cup tomorrow

One Thousand Hockey Legs’ outfit, Government Boys School, J Block, Saket have entered the final of the second Nehru-Dhyan Chand Sports Day Cup, after defeating fighting another OTHL member school, Govt. Co-Ed Sarvodaya School, Shapurjat 5-1 today at the picturesque Shivaji Stadium.

Saket, runners up last year, will engage professionally trained State Hockey Centre, Ashok Nagar school. Both teams remained undefeated till now.

Saket is one of the three oldest OTHL schools in Delhi – which has now increased to 25 – but haven’t won any major title. Either Begumpur or Anglo-Arabic School happened to be its nemesis, but now having defeated Anglo-Arabic School in the Tuesday’s quarterfinal, and against the background that Begumpur is not in the OTHL School after being taken over by the State, history beckons Saket to win their maiden major title in Delhi.

In the first semifinal, Saket struggled to get its feet firmly on the ground, as the new outfit Shapurjat did now allow them any leeway.

It was actually a reverse from the edge of the circle by entertaining dynamo Vikky Verma (Jr.) stunned the runners up team.

Saket pressed hard and earned a flurry of penalty corners, but the Vikky Sr, at the defence proved too much for the Sushil Chauhan, Sunil, Anil Paswan combination of attack.

However, Saket got a reprieve when Sushil Chauhan, the captain, unleashed a shot to equalize off the fifth penalty corner to draw the score 1-1 right at half time.

In the second half, hardworking Sunil, who had already figured in the Vadodara Sub-Junior Nationals, struck a brace to take the match away from the fighting, but fading on legs, Shahpur Jat.

OTHL introduced hockey at Saket three years ago, while it was last year for today’s losing team.

On the other semifinal, State Hockey Centre team, Ashok Vihar, defeated disgraced – because of over age students – SS Khalsa School 5-0, after taking a commendable 3-0 lead at half time.

Mukul Sharma, former OTHL livewire forward, posted two goals in the Ashok Nagar’s fluent victory.

This year edition of the Cup had 24 teams in the boys section, with 21 teams coming from OTHL.

The mega school event is jointly organized by Delhi based organizations, Jawaharlal Nehru Hockey Tournament Society and Hockey Citizen Group, which runs its flagship project One Thousand Hockey legs.