Hyderabad Sultans asserted their dominance over Chennai Veerans with a 5-3 victory on Tuesday in a match played out before largely empty stands.
Hyderabad team dominates over Chennai Veerans 5-3
CHANDIGARH: Hyderabad Sultans asserted their dominance over Chennai Veerans with a 5-3 victory on Tuesday in a match played out before largely empty stands. With just two more league matches to go, the PHL is winding towards conclusion and it’s about time if some of the more experienced observers of the game are to be believed.
The round robin format is spread over 14 days showcasing 21 matches. Nine of these have just a single contest being played out. No wonder then that there is limited interest amongst the crowd when a local team is not taking to the ground. The Hyderabad-Chennai encounter saw pretty much limited response with largely bare stands.
Chennai looked for its first win in the tournament and Hyderabad was keen to ensure that their challenge for a semis berth got bolstered. It proved to be a high-scoring encounter with four goals coming in the very first quarter — the decisive bit being that Hyderabad was already 3-0 ahead after the first 14 minutes and refused to look back thereof.
While the bigger picture that flashes the fortunes of the teams as such may not make for interesting watching, some of the sub plots are real intriguing.
VR Raghunath converted two of the five penalty corners that came the Veerans way. That takes his total goal tally to five in the League after the end of Veerans’ six round-robin matches.
His closest competitor for the drag-flicker spot in the team, Sandeep Singh, has emerged as the highest goal-scorer till now with a tally of eight.
In fact the match between Chennai Veerans and Chandigarh Dynamos on Monday showcased the rivalry between the two as Sandeep was all the more motivated towards checking Raghunath’s strike rate.
His roar of triumph when he thwarted Raghunath’s last of three attempts on Monday confirmed just how much it meant to him to come out on top of his rival. The heartening bit for Sandeep is that while Raghunath’s team is out of the reckoning, the Dynamos have already secured a semis berth. The selectors have now the dilemma of persisting with Raghunath or recalling Sandeep.
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