Air India Notch Up 4-1 Victory Against Army XI

Chennai: A couple of brilliant shortcorner conversions by VR Raghunath helped Indian Oil Corporation beat Indian Overseas Bank 3-2 in the inaugural match of the 84th Murugappa Cup on Thursday.

In fact, four of the five goals scored in the match came from penalty corners, which show that that Indians are getting better at the craft.

The local favourites IOB were upto it in the first half and an industrious Adam Sinclair gave them the lead in the 14th minute. Drag-flicker Muthuselvan directed it hard towards the goal and it was a deflection off Sinclair’s stick that crashed into the goal. But IOC were quick to come back into the game with Raghunath converting a penalty-corner in the 27th minute.

But with Sinclair in good form, IOB kept asking questions to the Ragunathled IOC defence. Had Rayar, Sinclair’s striking partner been in better form, the home team could easily have gone ahead. IOC kept up the pressure in the second half and Muthuselvan converted a penalty corner in the 40th minute to give them the lead.

Down 1-2, the Deepak Thakur-led IOC bottled up Sinclair operating down the left. Sinclair didn’t find the space to manoeuvre and got confined in a certain area, which killed off IOB’s attacks.

That helped IOC storm back into the game and Raghunath made it 2-2 in the 52nd minute from a penalty corner. The IOC forwardline led by Prabjhot Singh-made a number of forays into the rival zone and the IOB defence ran out of options, trying to keep the attackers at bay.

The pressure finally told when Inderjit Chadda received a pass from Rajpal and gave it to Prabjhot, who made no mistake with a backhand flick.

Meanwhile in the second amtch Air India blew Army XI away 4-1 in The soldiers were no match for the airmen throughout the match. They surrendered meekly to in the first half itself, conceding a 1-3 lead.

India’s specialist drag-flicker Sandeep Singh converted a penalty corner to give Air India 1-0 lead in the 10th minute. Girish increased the lead and the Dilip Tirkey-led Air India kept Army XI always under constant pressure.

The Air-India forwardline comprising of junior India junior skipper Gurbaj Singh, Bruno Hadrin and Vinnaya — made Army defenders’ lives miserable by invading the danger zone repeatedly.

Bruno, a product of Sundarghat sports hostel, sounded the board in the 29th minute while Cheyanna completed the rout in the 67th. The lone goal for the Army XI was scored by Arumugam.