TN overwhelm Kerala
Air India and Madhya Pradesh stormed into the quarterfinals of Hockey India’s 2nd National Hockey Championship from Pool E with easy victories on Tuesday. Air India hammered Nagaland 16-0 while MP downed Rajasthan 11-0. Air India had earlier beaten MP and Rajasthan while MP had beaten Nagaland 9-2.
Tamil Nadu warmed up for its needle clash in pool G with Odisha with a 16-1 victory over Kerala to add to Monday’s 25-1 conquest of Gujarat. Penalty corner specialist Rupinder Pal Singh scored 5 goals to lead 8 goal-scorers.
Maharashtra beat Bengal 3-1 in contrast to the high-scoring games early on. Naveen Sagwan struck in the third minute to get Air India off to a flying start. Vikram Pillay and Somanna Pradhan added two more goals to the tally in quick succession.
Naveen struck again in the 10th and 13th minutes with field goals. Sandeep Singh scored two more field goals for Air India in 15th and 22nd minutes before Birendra Lakra made it 8-0 in the 28th minute.
Vikram Pillay sounded the boards twice, in the 36th & 37th minutes, to make it 10-0 before Birendra scored again. Vikram got his third & Somanna succeeded twice.
Vinod Pillay completed the tally with two telling strikes and the final tally read 16-0.
MP’s striker Arman Qureshi stroked the ball past the Rajasthan custodian in the 14th minute to put them ahead. There was no let up thereafter as Amit Kumar Singh and Nizamuddin Mohammed scored one each, while Vikas Choudhary scored two field goals.
Shakir Hussain converted a penalty corner, Arman Qureshi, Vikas and Irshad Iqbal scored off crisp moves and Arman completed the rout five minutes before close.
Hosts Karnataka slammed Himachal Pradesh 5-0 to open their campaign in Pool B. S K Uthappa, Nithin Thimmaiah, V R Raghunath, Mohan Muthana and MB Aiyappa scored a goal each.