IOB derails SCR, BPCL hammers Sail

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Nothing earth-shattering occurred on the opening day of the MCC Murugappa-Gold Cup hockey tournament at the MRK stadium here on Thursday.IOB, who have touched the nadir after being in the upper echelons in Tamil Nadu hockey, have hit their stride by making mincemeat of a disjointed South Central Railway 6-3. In the second match of the evening BPCL had too many aces up their sleeve for Sail to contend with as they blanked them 3-0.Before the start of the proceedings, it must be said that, not many would have tipped either SCR or Sail to even collect a point let alone upsetting their much vaunted rivals and that is exactly how things played out in the end. There was not so much of a zeal for a fight on the part of SCR and it would be grave injustice to describe it as a match. Perhaps mismatch would suit the description to a T. Right from the outset there was not even an iota of doubt in the gathering’s mind as to which way the wind was blowing. In fact the number of instances SCR looked threatening to score could be counted on the fingers of one hand. It appeared as though IOB’s goalmouth was out of bounds for SCR.It didn’t take long for IOB to pile on the misery on SCR and former Olympian Adam Sinclair opened the scoring in the ninth minute. To give credit where it’s due, SCR almost immediately found the equaliser through the impressive Anmol Minz, who was their lone bright spot, and at that juncture it looked like it had the makings of a cracker of a contest. But showing a hopeless lack of creativity SCR spurned whatever limited chances came their way and couldn’t cash in on their equaliser. At half-time with IOB regaining the upper-hand any chances SCR had of getting on level terms were quelled with elan.The talking point of the match, though, was how IOB for all the pressure they exerted struggled to force even a single penalty corner in the entire first half. Not that they were unduly worried as in the second-half they added four more goals to their tally with Vinod Rayar collecting a brace. Drag flicker and the player everyone is currently raving about Rupinderpal Singh has to wait till Friday to flaunt his goal scoring prowess.
The contest between BPCL and Sail went on expected lines as never once were the former subjected to any pressure. Gurupreet Singh slotted in two penalty corners while A. Aiyamma made it 3-0 in the 52nd minute by which time the match was well beyond Sail’s reach.Results: IOB 6 (Adam Sinclair, V. Shanmugam 2, Vinod Rayar 2, M.K.Muddappa) bt SCR 3 (A. Anmol Minz, Manjeet Kullu, Suresh Toppo); BPCL 3 (Gurupreet Singh 2, A. Aiyamma) bt Sail 0.