Kusum Arora
Tribune News Service
A star-studded Indian Oil entered the final of the 26th Indian Oil Servo Surjit Hockey Tournament by beating Border Security Force, Jalandhar, 5-4 via a tiebreaker at the Olympian Surjit Hockey Stadium on Thursday.
Indian Oil displayed good cohesion and opened their account in the 15th minute with a penalty corner conversion by Deedar Singh to make it 1-0. Earlier, in the 4th quarter of the game Sharanjit Singh of BSF wasted a golden chance to score a goal. Again in the 25th minute BSF skipper Harbhajan Singh made a decent attempt on the Indian Oil goal but their custodian Devesh Chauhan made a good save. The Indian Oil men wasted a second penalty corner in the 30th minute and at half time Indian Oil was leading by 1-0.
In the second half of the match BSF mounted pressure on rivals Indian Oil and scored an equaliser from Sharanjit Singh’s pass from the right flank in the 45th minute of the game 1-1. Later Indian Oil wasted four penalty corners in 47th, 49th, 60th and 68th minutes of the game. Both teams leveled at 1-1 at the end of the stipulated time.
The match was decision was taken with a tie breaker. For Indian Oil Arjun Antil, Rupinder Pal Singh, Preetinder Singh and Gaurav Toki scored the goals steering the team towards victory whereas for BSF Varinderjit Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Sharanjit Singh took the lead. In the other match Air India beat Bharat Petroleum 2-0.