Akashdeep scores four

Akashdeep Singh scored four goals, including a hat-trick, to help Punjab begin its campaign in the National junior hockey championship with a 7-0 victory over Chhattisgarh in a Pool ‘C’ match at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium, here on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Karnataka rode on its captain Aiyappa P.R. Paradanda’s brace to outplay Kerala 5-0 and Tamil Nadu beat Uttrakhand 5-0.

SAI (Bhopal) held Maharashtra to a 1-1 draw.

The results: Pool ‘A’: Haryana w/o Assam. Pool ‘C’: Punjab 7 (Akashdeep Singh 4, Harjeet Singh, Gurjinder Singh, Talwinder Singh) bt Chhattisgarh 0.

Pool ‘E’: Maharashtra 1 (Kartik Sharma) drew with SAI (Bhopal) 1 (Nitesh); Tamil Nadu 5 (M. Dhileepan 2, E. Charles, R.T. Raghuram, J. Gowtham) bt Uttarakhand 0.

Pool ‘G’: Karnataka 5 (Aiyappa P.R. Paradanda 2, Basvaraj Amdiger, S.S. Gowda, Mallikarjun Aikur) bt Kerala 0; Chandigarh 10 (Narinder Pal Singh 3, Sunil Shah 2, Baljit Singh 2, Kanwaldeep Singh 2, Sukhjeet Singh) bt Jammu and Kashmir 1 (Tarvinderpal Singh).