Pune Stryke out Comets to meet Sher-E-Punjab in final

V. Anand

MUMBAI: Pune Strykers have now made it a fine art to escape when the chips are down. Against Chandigarh Comets in the World Series Hockey (WSH) semifinals, they scored three times after being down 1-4, to reach the final via the tie-breaker, which they won 3-2.

It was an amazing turnaround. Pune have now scripted three such comebacks, but Sunday’s win over Comets was the most stirring.

The last of Pune’s goals came off their eighth penalty corner, when the chips were down and they were trailing Comets 4-3 and the hooter had been sounded, signalling an end to regulation time. Simrandeep Randhawa, who was having a wretched game, turned the fortunes around for his team with his only penalty corner conversion, pushing the game to a
shootout.

In the shootout, Bikash Toppo, Mario Almada and Nikkin Thimmaiah scored Pune, while only Bharat Chikkara and Gurjinder were successful for the Comets.

Sher-E-Punjab devour Lions

In a high-voltage contest, Sher-E-Punjab outplayed Karnataka Lions 4-1 to make the final of the World Series Hockey at the KSHA stadium in Bangalore on Sunday, reports Sunil Subbaiah.

The Lions got off to a flier – grabbing the lead early – but came off second best after Punjab got the equaliser.

The hosts went ahead in the 11th minute through Naveen Kumar, who dived to convert Punjab defender Harpreeth Singh’s deflection that came off from Innocent Kullu’s cross. Punjab were quick to respond when Aussie import Matthew Hotchkis restored parity in the 19th minute following a penalty corner.

Although the Lions failed to find the target, they did give the Punjab defenders a tough time with repeated forays that had the near-capacity crowd on the edge.

Results: Chandigarhs Comets 4 (Gurjinder Singh 5th, Jasjit Khullar, Ajitesh Roy, Rehan Butt) lost to Pune Strykers 4 (Roshan Minz, Tyrone Pereira, Bikash Toppo, Simrandeep Randhawa); Karnataka Lions: 1 (Naveen Kumar 11) lost to Sher-E-Punjab: 4 (Matthew Hotchkis 19-pc, Karamjit Singh 40, Harpreet Singh 59-pc, Prabhjot Singh 67).