Dirty dozen for champs Indian Oil

Defending champions Indian Oil proved too strong for local qualifiers Maharashtra State Police as they easily won their opening Pool-A league match of the 49th Bombay Gold Cup Hockey Championship at the MHAL stadium, Churchgate by a thumping 12-2 margin.

Indian Oil, winners of Surjit Singh Memorial Trophy in Jalandhar last week, were in full flow enjoying a comfortable 5-2 lead at half-time. They got their goals through Roshan Minz who scored four, Prabhjot Singh three, two each from Gurjinder Singh and Hamza Mujtaba and the last by Sunil Yadav to complete the rout. The policemen managed to score two first half goals through Aashish Chopade and Vinod Manugade to reduce the margin defeat.

Earlier in a Pool-D match last year's runners-up Air India survived a scare from South Central Railway before settling for a 4-4 draw. Air India started with flourish opening up a comfortable 2-0 half-time advantage. But they were unable to maintain the momentum in the second half and conceded the advantage to the southern outfit, which put up a solid fight scoring four goals on the trot to wrest the initiative before Air India struck twice in the final 12 minutes to salvage a draw.

Stopwatch: Indian Oil 12 (G Singh 3, 46, R Minz 7, 42, 45, 49, P Singh 22, 27, 38, H Mujtaba 24, 64, S Yadav 67) bt Maharashtra State Police 2 (A Chopade 23, V Manugade 26), Air India 4 (S Singh 7, P Tirkey 15, G Singh 58, Aiyappa BK 64) drew with South Central Railway 4 (M James 40, 51, 52, I Kullu 44),