Youth scores over experience as ONGC, PNB enter Nehru hockey final

Gurwinder Singh Chandi may be out of the national team but going by his performance at the ongoing Nehru hockey tournament here so far, his employers ONGC will not be complaining.
On Thursday, he gave further proof of why he is rated highly by scoring a hat-trick in the team’s 4-2 win over Bharat Petroleum in the semi-finals. The result also put ONGC in their second successive final of the tournament.

The initial period had both teams trying to size up each other, except for an occasional foray into the other half. The first goal came in the 24th minute. After an exchange of passes between Chandi and Akashdeep Singh from the half line till inside the striking circle, the latter found his view to the goal blocked by BPCL goalkeeper Swinder Singh. Instead of taking on the keeper and a couple of defenders himself, Akashdeep passed it on the run to Chandi, who made no mistake in slotting the ball in.

The second came immediately on resumption, Chandi this time slightly lifting the ball into the net from an acute angle. A third goal four minutes later saw Chandi deflecting the ball in off a goalmouth melee.

Being 0-3 down is not a familiar situation for a team like BPCL, and they tried to regroup and go on attack. It seemed to work, Hari Prasad reducing the margin in the 48th minute, but Diwakar Ram converted a penalty corner six minutes later to make it 4-1. Though Jarnail pulled one back in the dying minutes for BPCL, they were never truly in the match, and the result reflected it.

In the day’s other semi-final, PNB XI made their maiden final of the tournament, edging out a fancied Air India side 4-2. The two teams were a study in contrast — PNB, made up of players in their early 20s, were fast, nippy and aggressive; Air India struggled to find space and were unable to break past PNB’s defence. And even though they fought back twice to level scores, PNB made sure the defending champions would not play another final.

Opening their account in the very first minute through Damandeep Singh, PNB scored through jatinder, Naveen and Ranjit Singh jr. For Air India, Lalit Upadhyay and Rahul Shilpkar scored.