Sunday, January 10, 2010: Star studded Air India outplayed South Central Railway ( S.C.Rly ) by a handsome margin of 6-2 after being at level terms of ( 1-1) score during breather in the last league tie of 9th All India Guru Tegh Bahadur Gold Cup Hockey Tournament sponsored by Punjab & Maharashtra Co.Op.Bank Ltd played at the MHA Mahindra Stadium, Churchgate.
In an earlier tie played local outfit Central Railway whipped the whipping side of the tournament Bhopal XI by a second huge margin of 17-2 during lemon break C.Rly were having a cushion of 11-0 score. However, C.Rly had to depend on Air India & S.C.Rly results for qualifying in the pool ‘B’ .
Both C.Rly and S.C.Rly had same points 4 points each ( One win and One draw ) whatsoever S.C.Rly had to win or draw against fancied Air India to qualify while C.Rly needed S.C.Rly to lose. C.rly qualify on virtue of goal difference though the points were same.
Thus C.Rly entered the semis alongwith Air India in Pool ‘B’. Air India leads all win records the table with 9 points.
In the Air India & S.C.Rly clash – S.C.rly has desired started on a bright note going up in the 21st minutes by a superb field goal a stunner Amit Shrivas & Mohd.Aleem combined efforts from the centre while the later unleashing a direct pass to well stationed Rajinder Yadav who brilliantly shot pass the confused Air India keeper Gurpreet Singh.
Airmen found the equalizer 8 minutes later Icon Dhanraj Pillay solo move from the 25 yards resulted in a stroke S.C.Rly defender stick checked him at the spot. Ajmer Singh converted with ease ( 1-1).
After breather time the fancied Airmena found goals at regular intervals Mathais Minz ( 2 goals ) Sameer Dad ( 2 goals ) and M.K.Mudappa ( 1 goal ) rounded the tally. S.C.Rly could not keep the initial momentum intact, however in patches they came up with excellent moves Irshad Mirza the lanky striker particularly did the spade work for S.C,Rly once they pulled back goal besides the initial lead Irshad Mirza in the 68th minutes.
Central Rly and Bhopal XI tie – it was very crucial for C.Rly who had to score maximum goals to dethroned S.C.Rly and they did it by firing 17 goals to helpless Bhopal XI who in 3 matches have conceded 46 goals a highest by any team so far and scored only .
2 goals that in the last tie against C.Rly. Ajaz Qureshi ( 4 goals ) , Amit Singh ( 5 goals ) Shashi Topno ( 3 goals ) Shamsher Khan ( 2 goals ) Nilesh Mane , Navneet Swarnakar, Deepak Lakra for one each. Sachin Bhatnakar and Imran Yusuf reduced the margin for Bhopal XI.
Tomorrow, in the first semi-final, ONGC will take on Central Railways, while the second semi-final will be played between Air India and Indian Oil.