Asom, Manipur register victory in NE Challenge hockey
GUWAHATI, Oct 21: Defending champion Asom started their campaign in the North East Challenge Cup Hockey in style thrashing Tripura by 6-0 at the Md Toyabulla Hockey Stadium here today. On the other match of the day, Manipur toying with Nagaland registered a biggest win in the second edition of the championship. Manipur won the game by 13-0.
It is for the second time the championship is being held in Guwahati which is jointly hosted by the Assam Hockey Association and the North East Hockey Association. Altogether six teams are taking part in the championship which was inaugurated today by the Olympian Thoiba Singh.
The match between Asom and Tripura was the second one of the day. Capitalizing the support of home crowd, who turned out today in big numbers, Asom started the game in a very attacking mood and open their account within 12 minutes through Raman Kumar Singh. Ratul Ansari, who performed superbly in the match, scored two goals for Asom which also helped him to earn the best player award of the match. Ajit Singh, Anandjit and Manoj Das scored other goals for the winners.
Earlier in the first match of the day, held in the morning, Manipur thrashed Nagaland 13-0 in a completely one sided affair. L Herojit Singh alone scored three goals while P Adeba and M Mirple scored two goals each. L Bikram, N Gunamani, P Priyakumar, O Boniyam, S Tarun Kumar and R K Dhanjit Singh scored the other goals for Manipur.
Apart from Thoiba Singh the inaugural function of the tournament was also attended by two other former international hockey player Satinder singh and Virender Bhadra Singh respectively, the president of the North East Hockey Association G M Srivastava, the Joint Director of the Sports and Youth Welfare Department Rajiv Prakash Baruah, S P Ram, DGP, fire service, two key officials of the Assam Olympic Association Raj Kakoti and Pradip Hazarika and many others.
In his brief speech Thoiba Singh lauded the initiative taken by the organizers to arrange such a meet and he also advised them to select players from this tournament for training programme .
Tomorrows match: Asom vs Arunachal Pradesh (morning), Meghalaya vs Manipur (afternoon)