Comets hit Wizards in World Series Hockey

NEW DELHI: Delhi Wizards suffered a major setback in the World Series Hockey when they went down 0-1 to Chandigarh Comets at the Major Dhyan Chand National stadium on Wednesday.

Wizards, who desperately needed a win to brighten their chances of making the semifinals, failed to rise to the occasion and suffered their fourth defeat of the competition.

After the first three quarters went goalless, Comets struck the winner through Gurjinder Singh who slammed home from the side’s third penalty corner in the 64th minute.

The loss left Wizards languishing at the seventh position in the eight-team competition, ahead of Karnataka Lions, at the half-way stage of the tournament. The win helped Chandigarh moved up to joint third position with 12 points.

Wizards needed to come up with something special to arrest the slump in their fortunes in the tournament and they did manage to do so for a brief period early on. Shakeel Abbasi, captaining the Wizards in the match, made some inroads into the rival defence and created scoring chances.

But the Wizards failed to make that count. On one such occasion, the strikers led by Abbasi earned a penalty corner in the 4th minute into the match, but the resultant drag-flick by Vikramjeet Singh was palmed away by Chandigarh custodian Harjot Singh.