Dream final: Air India vs IOC

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Defending champions ONGC’s title ambitions went up in smoke as they went down to Air India 0-1 in the semifinals of the MCC-Murugappa gold cup hockey tournament at the MRK Stadium here on Saturday.

Joga Singh scored the winner in the 53rd minute. IOC quelled a late challenge from BPCL to prevail 4-3 in the second semi-final.

Air India’s win, as the score-line suggests, wasn’t straightforward. The starting XI of Air India wore a depleted look without the experienced trio of captain Arjun Halappa, forwards Shivendra Singh and Sameer Dad. All of them were nursing injuries.

The first real chance of the game fell to Gurvinder Chandi of ONGC in the third minute, who, with only the goal-keeper to beat fluffed a sitter.

Thereafter neither team managed to create opportunities and it appeared that whoever scored first would be in the pole position to make it to the final.

Air India coach Dhanraj Pillay’s decision to enter Halappa midway through the first half worked like a charm.

Until Halappa strode onto the turf, Air India resembled a ship without a captain and the minute he came on he galvanized the whole team.

The goal-keeping in the tournament has been first-rate and it came to the fore again in the 30th minute when ONGC custodian Dinesh Ekka made a brilliant reflex save to deny Halappa. At half-time the score-line remained 0-0.

Just when it seemed that penalty strokes were inevitable, Halappa rolled back the years by making an accurate pass to Joga Singh, who positioned himself at the right spot to guide the ball in.

Air India seemed content at protecting their one goal advantage by cramping room to the ONGC’s forwards.
Pillay said he was chuffed with the way his team played.

“Before the match I was worried about my forward line-up. I had no such worries about mid-field as it was manned by Vikram Pillay, Vikas Pillay and Sanjeev Ajmani, who were all seasoned campaigners.

Everything went according to plan and I couldn’t have asked for a better effort from my players,” he added.

The IOC-BPCL contest was a cracker. Even though IOC led 2-0 at half-time thanks to goals from Hamza Mujtaba and Thimmanna and then 4-1, BPCL struck twice in the dying minutes to keep their experienced opponents on tenterhooks. IOC goalie Devesh Chauhan was outstanding as he made a string of excellent saves in the first half.

Results

Air India 1 (Joga Singh 53) bt ONGC 0, IOC 4 (Hamza Mujtaba 30, Thimmanna 35, Deepak Thakur 45, V.R. Raghunath 67) bt BPCL 3 (Tushar Khandker 40, Hariprasad 68, William Xalco 70).
Action today

Final: IOC vs Air India (5 pm).