PSB, Punjab Police in final

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: The 113th all-India Beighton Cup hockey tournament final will be fought between Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB) and Punjab Police (PP) on Friday.

In the semifinals played at the SAI ground on Thursday, PP stroked out Indian Oil by 4-3 for an victory aggregate of 5-4 while PSB outplayed local challenger Punjab Sports Club by two first half goals.

Last year’s semifinalist Indian Oil struggled to find the attacking rhythm and was down by a third minute goal scored by Kuljeet Singh. An early goal and the mounting pressure made the team go on the defensive but it mounted some promising raids in the second half.

During this period of ascendancy, Indian Oil managed to break through Punjab Police defence and got the equaliser through Inderjeet Singh in the 50th minute.

The regulation time and 15 minutes of extra time did not yield a result. Punjab Police exerted so much pressure that at one point in extra-time Indian Oil custodian Devesh Chauhan made five consecutive penalty corner saves to enable his side to the tie-breaker.

In the tie-breaker, Jugraj Singh, Satwinder Singh, Kuljeet Singh and Kanwalpreet Singh scored for the Police team while Hamza Mujtaba, Kamlesh Parihar and Inderjeet Singh found the target for Indian Oil.
Easy going

PSB found the going rather easy against Punjab SC. Two early goals, the first coming in the fourth minute through Mandeep Singh and the second through Onkar Singh in the ninth minute, proved enough for the bankmen who took things easy in the second half.

Punjab SC did try to come back into the game in the later half but all its efforts to get through the PSB defence proved futile.

The results:

Punjab Police 5 (Kuljeet Singh) (Jugraj, Satwinder, Kuljeet and

Kanwalpreet) bt Indian Oil 4 (Inderjeet Singh) (Hamza Mujtaba,

Kamlesh and Inderjeet); Punjab and Sind Bank 2 (Mandeep Singh, Onkar Singh) bt Punjab SC 0.