Printed Article. Times of India

Friday, 12 September 2008: CHENNAI: Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) made it to the semi-finals after playing out a 3-3 draw with Indian Railways in an ill-tempered match in the All-India MCC Murugappa Gold Cup hockey tournament here on Thursday.

In the semi-finals scheduled Saturday, IOCL take on Army XI while Air India face IOB after a day’s break.

Railways, who needed to beat IOCL outright to qualify for the semi-finals, finished on six points and at third place in pool A.

Railways had their chances in a match that saw neither team playing constructive hockey.

Frayed tempers and some questionable supervision contributed to the poor quality encounter that did no justice to the talent pool that IOCL boasted.

Railways rocked IOCL with a 15th minute strike by Hardeep Singh who put home a Bharath pass. However, IOCL bounced back as Deepak Thakur (21st) and Prabhjot Singh (31st) came up with deflections to give their team a 2-1 advantage at half-time.

On resumption, Inderjit Chadda made it 3-1 for IOCL as he slotted home Thakur’s penalty corner drive in the 48th minute. Thereafter, the match degenerated into a scrappy affair with both teams struggling to get going.

Railways struck twice in the last eight minutes through Hardeep (62nd) and Innocent Kullu (64th) to draw level, but IOCL managed to play out the remaining time to pick up a point.

Earlier, in an inconsequential pool B match, Namdhari XI scored their first win by defeating Orissa XI 4-1 in their concluding league outing.

Gurmail Singh (37th), Harmeet Singh (48th), Karamjeet Singh (54th) and Gurvinder Singh (57th) scored for Namdhari while Orissa replied through Dhyanchand Munda (50th).