BANGALORE: It was perhaps former India skipper Vasudevan Bhaskaran’s happiest day in a long time. Not only did Bhopal Badshahs, the team coached by him, win but more importantly his son Karan Laxman did the star turn scoring twice in a 3-1 victory over hosts Karnataka Lions in the World Series Hockey encounter before a packed KSHA Stadium on Monday night.
This was Bhopal Badshah’s second win in three games having lost the other. Karnataka Lions crashed to their third straight defeat and are pointless as yet. Ashok Kumar Kheni, Suniel Shetty, Punith Rajkumar, Madhuri Bhattacharya, Olympians and Internationals, the IHF president R K Shetty, the KSHA secretary Krishnamurthy all joined hands at half time to honour Umpire Raghu of Karnataka who has been selected to officiate in the London Olympics. The KSHA presented a purse of `25,000 to Raghu. Much against the run of play Karnataka forged ahead after two blank quarters of play of 17.30 minutes each.
Jarnail Singh ran down the left and smacked a hard shot from inside the circle. It struck goalkeeper Baljit Singh and travelled to the legendary Dhanraj Pillay who scooped home from close.
But Bhopal replied almost immediately when Waseem Ahmed put Karan Laxman through and the latter made no mistake with his firm shot on the run. That came in the 44th minute and two minutes later they made it 2-1 when Karan this time swiped home a pass from Girish Pimpale.
Karnataka then pushed Arjun Halappa upfront and the attack looked more incisive. They forced a couple of penalty corners too but Len Aiyappa failed to beat the redoubtable Baljit in the goal as he brought off neat saves. Bhopal again came into the attacking picture and made it safer for them with another goal in the 48th minute. This time, Ranjit Singh ran down and pushed forward following a penalty corner effort and captain Sameer Dad drove home past goalkeeper Devesh Chauhan.
Cheetahs rout Wizards 5-2
New Delhi: Pakistan international Syed Imran Warsi scored twice as Chennai Cheetahs notched up a 5-2 victory over hosts Delhi Wizards in their third match of the series at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium here in the second match of the day. Wizards scored through Germany’s Philip Sunkel (32nd and 34th minute), but the Cheetahs’ Joseph Reardon (35th min), drag-flicker Warsi (47th and 53rd min), Sinclair (55th min) and Sandeep Antil (60th min) helped the team pocket full three points from the outing.