The Hindu : Western Railway knocks Tamil Nadu out

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 18, 2003

Sport

Sport - Hockey

Western Railway knocks Tamil Nadu out

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI APRIL 17. The penalty-stroke jinx got to Tamil Nadu XI against Western Railway, Mumbai, in the only second round knockout tie of 41st Bombay Gold Cup hockey championship going beyond regulation time on Thursday. The local side won 6-5, after both sides were locked 2-2 in regulation time, booking a quarterfinal league berth along with Indian Airlines and Indian Oil.

Western capitalised on familiar conditions to knock in two goals before the visitor had settled down at the Mahindra Stadium turf. Shivendra Singh applied the finishing touch to a first penalty corner earned as early as in the sixth minute and then skipper Chanderpal Singh broke through the TN defence in the 16th minute for the second.

Crossing over with the cushion of a two-goal lead, the local side concentrated on defence, allowing the visitor space and time to counter-attack. Western was rocked by the TN onslaught, starting with a penalty stroke conversion by Radhakrishnan in the 56th minute. It was only a matter of time before sustained pressure led to the equaliser through a spectacular Divakar field goal, dragging the ball rolling out of range following a flash move.

TN earned four penalty corners in the second session, seven in all, but the scores remained unchanged leading to the strokes, where Western converted four out of five attempts through Gurusevak Singh, Chanderpal, Anand Sondkar and Shanta Kumar.

Rajneesh Chaturvedi's miss didn't prove costly as the visitors struck only thrice with Natarajan, Yuvaraj and Jagath Jothi beating custodian Sairam Bishnoi in the first three strokes, but skipper Thirumalvalavan's attempt crashed into the crossbar and Radhakrishnan scooped wide.

Other results (second round):

Indian Airlines 6 (Dhanraj Pillay 3 (hat-trick), Mukesh Kumar 2, Girish Pimpale) bt Jammu & Kashmir Police 0.

Indian Oil 7 (Inderjeet Singh 2, Deepak Thakur 2, Kamlesh Kumar, Inder Salaria, Bikramjeet Singh) bt South Central Railway 2 (Amit Srinivas, Bipin Thimmaiah).

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