BEG beat Western Railway 3-2 in the inaugural tie; CR thrash Abhi Foundation 6-0, IOB edge out MSP 3-2.
Bombay Engineering Group (BEG), Pune, started their campaign in the Aga Khan hockey tournament with a 3-2 win over Western Railway at the Bombay Gymkhana on Sunday.
The inaugural match of the tournament was a ‘game of two halves’ with BEG dominating the first and Western Railway making a spirited comeback in the next.
The young BEG took no time to get off their tracks and launched a number of attacks inside the Mumbai side’s circle. It took eight minutes for them to break the deadlock with forward Rohit Dungdung finishing an intricate passing move which BEG started from their own half.
Just two minutes later, BEG won a penalty corner, but they chose not to take the direct route. After a couple of passes inside the circle, Samsulender K pushed the ball over the line in the goal mouth scramble.
The railmen had to keep chasing their opponents for the rest of the half as they showed sloppiness in their trapping and gave away the possession of the ball too easily.
They had a good chance to reduce the lead when they earned a penalty corner but it was easily dealt with by the BEG defenders. In the 27th minute, BEG full back Rajendra Ekka was hit by a raised ball and had to be taken off.
Western Railway came out attacking in the second half but it made them more susceptible to counter attacks. Just like in the first half, Dungdung scored eight minutes into the period, this time a powerful drive from the right.
The railmen, however, were not discouraged by this set back and kept attacking. BEG players could not keep their speedy attacks going after getting the three-goal advantage and in the 46th minute, Manish Saini pulled one back for the railmen from a short corner variation.
Malak Singh made the score 3-2 as the complexion of the game almost completely changed. Saini came close to equalising in the 65th as he hit the crossbar but it was not to be for Western Railway as BEG defended stoutly to keep their lead.
BEG manager Sagar Thakur believed that it was the injury to Ekka that let the Railway side back into the game. “Our fullback was injured, but I did not put on another fullback and just tweaked the formation because we were 2-0 up. Later on in the game, our opponents increased the pressure on us and got those goals back, so I had to put another fullback so that there is no more damage,” he said.
Results: BEG, Pune 3 (Rohit Dung Dung 8’, 43’, Samsulender K 10’) bt Western Railway 2 (Manish Saini 46’, Malak Singh 53’); Central Railway 6 (Ather Mirza 7’, 43’, Deepak Lakra 58’, 68’, Navneet Swarnakar 23’, Vishal Pillay 44’) bt Abhi Foundation 0; Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), Chennai 3 (Amardeep Singh, Senthil Kumar, Gurjinder Singh) bt Maharashtra State Police (MSP) 2 (Vinod Mangugade, Atul Patil) via tie-break (0-0 full time)
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