The Hindu: Mandeep stars in ONGC’s big win
Mandeep Singh, fresh from his excellent display for the bronze-medal winning Indian team at the recent HWL in Bhubaneswar, showed his class with a fine hat-trick and steered ONGC, Delhi to an emphatic 6-1 victory over Mumbai Customs in a Pool-A league match of the 52nd Bombay Gold Cup all-India hockey tournament at the Mahindra Stadium here on Wednesday.
ONGC took the lead in the second minute when India star Gurjant Singh sounded the boards.
Nilam Xess doubled the lead, converting a penalty corner in the 18th minute.
Two minutes later, Navjot Singh increased the tally before Mandeep scored the first of his three goals in the 23rd minute as ONGC went into the break with a healthy 4-0 cushion.
On resumption, Mandeep struck two more goals in the 42nd and 49th minutes to round off the tally for the oilmen.
Customs managed to get a consolation goal through Navpreet Singh in the 45th minute.
CAG holds BPCL
In Pool-B, CAG, Delhi rallied to hold fancied BPCL, Mumbai to a 1-1 draw.
BPCL opened the account when Varun Kumar converted a penalty stroke in the 20th minute, while CAG got the equaliser through the hard-working Imran Khan in the 60th minute.
The results:
Pool-A: ONGC 6 (Gurjant Singh 2, Nilam Xess 18-PC, Navjot Singh 20, Mandeep Singh 23, 42, 49) bt Mumbai Customs 1 (Navpreet Singh 45).
Pool-B: BPCL 1 (Varun Kumar 20-PS) drew with CAG, Delhi 1 (Imran Khan 60).
Pool-C: Indian Oil 4 (Affan Yusuf 23, Arman Qureshi 29, Vikas Sharma 53, V.R. Raghunath 61) bt Western Railway 2 (Alsam Lakra 22, Jaikaran Khushwaha 56).
Thursday’s matches: PNB vs IAF (Pool-D, 2 p.m.); BPCL vs Central Railway (Pool-B, 4 p.m.); ONGC vs SCR (Pool-A, 6 p.m.).