CHENNAI: The quality dished out in the 92nd MCC-Murugappa Gold Cup all-India hockey tournament here on Friday continues to be well below par, which is certainly a cause for concern. Though these are early days, the teams will have to come out of their self-imposed shackles to offer domestic hockey a breath of fresh air.
Both matches, involving Indian Army and Mumbai Hockey Association (MHA) and Indian Navy and Hockey Bengaluru, were mediocre to put it mildly.
Army suffered a first-half slump before overcoming MHA 5-1 in a Pool A contest while Navy scripted its second successive win in Pool B with a 2-1 verdict.
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Hockey Bengaluru, the finalist last time around, did not field the same team this time. Star player V.R. Raghunath is not available and so are couple of seniors.
Given its limitations, Hockey Bengaluru did relatively well with the youngsters, only to concede a goal at the death. With 28 seconds left for the hooter, Sunny Malik converted the winner, pushing one into the net after receiving a pass from Poonacha.
Army wasn’t imposing in the first-half even though it clearly had more possession.
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Mumbai, which defended well, scored the first goal off a penalty corner through Roshan Keisham and went into the break with a 1-0 lead.
But it was a confident Army team in the second half as it scored three quick goals through Sajeeb Dung Dung, Jitender and Biraj Ekka, the last taking the cake. Ekka dribbled past two defenders on the back-line to scoop it past custodian Sudhir Dixit.
The results:
Pool A: Indian Army 5 (Sajeeb Dung Dung 36, Jitender 44, Biraj Ekka 50, Gurpreet Singh 56, Sarin 60) bt MHA 1 (Roshan Keisham 6).
Pool B: Indian Navy 2 (Bharat Singh 27, Sunny Malik 70) bt Hockey Bengaluru 1 (Sharda Nand Tiwari 18).