Battle royal for OTHL today in the Nehru Hockey Cup

With two clear victories on their back, and a match to go in the preliminary league, One Thousand Hockey Legs boys engage Malwa Khalsa school today in what can be billed as the Battle Royal for Super League slot (from Pool G) at Shivaji stadium, New Delhi, where the prestigious 31st Sub-Junior Boys Hockey tournament is going on.

Combined OTHL team, consisting of boys from mostly government schools of Delhi, have won their first match 3-2 against DC Narke Vidya Niketan and Junior College, Kuditre, Kolhapur (Maharashtra) on Sunday, followed it up with a fluent 4-1 win over St. Agnes Inter College Dehradun, champion school of Uttarkhand State, yesterday.

Their last obstacle in moving to the Super league stage – only winner of each pool makes the cut to next stage – is a talented outfit from Ludhiana (Punjab).

Eight teams from the preliminary pool and four directly seeded team make up for the Super League.

Both OTHL and Malwa teams have won both their matches, the latter more assertively and authoritatively, and will eye the top spot with clear win.

On the face of it, it appears the Malwa outfit is an Academy team, meaning they train longer hours, that too daily, in contrast to the OTHL team, an amateur one, who plays only on week ends. This is in order not to compromise education for the sake of sports.

THE OTHL team has to bolster up their defence in order to contain sharp shooters in their today’s rival.

Malwa is excellent in penalty corners as they have a couple of good drag-flickers; here comes the role of OTHL goalie Zaseem Ali who so far had a mixed performance.

Zaseem has to role out something better in him to tackle the skilled rivals, especially the drags.

After taking 2-0 lead OTHL team let in two goals against Maharashtra school in the opener and then yesterday Dehradun too tore in the last minute.

Such lapses, besides poor shooting skills of their forwards — they did not strike single goal in the entire second half — may hamper OTHL’s dream unless rectified.

Fixture for today: OTHL Vs Malwa Khalsa Sr. Sec. School, Ludhiana (Punjab) 14.45 hrs. Match webcast in www.nehruhockey.com