It is all in the sports. Hero one day, the other on the next. Its Deepak Thakur who brought his Indian Oil team to the finals with that impeccable goal against the Army in the semis yesterday. Bt today was different, the same Deepak failed to fire his quota of stroke in the tie-break, leaving the Air India team to walk away with the season’s first honour – the MCC Murugappa Gold Cup.

Both teams tied 1-1 at the end of regulation time. In the extra time, it’s the oilmen who exerted that extra pressure, but their reliable strikeman in VR Raghunath could not see the ball inside the net off two penalty corners.

Incidentally, it’s the veteran who scored off the only penalty corner the oilmen got in the regulation time.

ON the other hand, the Air India team got three penalty corners within 70 minutes of play, but could not score any, despite the artful positioning of the ball by Arjun Halappa.

The equalizer the airmen scored was a beauty. The right flank attack led to two good passes inside the circle before the ball was pushed by the diving forward.

In the tie-breaker first four players of each side converted. For Air India it was Shivender Singh, Arjun Halappa, Prabodh Tirkey and Sandeep Singh scored while for the IOC it was Raghunath, Didar Singh, Bharat Chikara and Roshan Minz. The fifth storke was taken well by Gaurav Tokhi. Had Deepak made his attempt the match would have gone into sudden death, but he chose to send a week grounder, that grounded his team and allowed the airman to give a perfect take off for the season, with the MCC Gold Cup.

Winners Prize Money: Rs 1,50,000.

Result: Air India 5 (1) (Prabodh) bt IOC 4 (1) (Raghunath). Special awards: Man of the match: Prabodh (AI).
Player of the tournament: Deepak Thakur (IOC).
Best forward: Adam Sinclair (IOB).
Best midfielder: M. Senthil (IOB).
Best defender: Innoncent Kullu (Railways).