Indian Navy to clash with Railways Sports Promotion Board in Nehru Hockey Final

New Delhi: Indian Navy and Railways Sports Promotion Board will clash in the final of SNBP 61st Nehru Men’s Hockey Tournament at Shivaji Stadium on Tuesday. The match at 2.30 pm will be preceded by a colorful cultural performances.

First Railways, who played at half pace on Sunday against Navy in a match to decide the pool topper, on Monday played their heart out in grounding Indian Air Force with a convincing  3-0 margin. Later, Indian Navy showed their true class in outplaying Petroleum Sports Promotion Board 3-1.

So complete was the dominance of the seamen that they conceded the first penalty corner to Petroleum team in the fourth quarter! It produced a goal when their specialist Gurjinder Singh intead of taking shot passed the ball to Dipsan Tirkey to do the needful.

Navy scored through Pawan Rajbhar early in second quarter. It was a brilliant goal from an acute angle.

Generally consistent Sushil Dhanwar converted a penalty corner in the third quarter to put his team two up.

The beginning of fourth quarter produced the most spectacular goal by K Selvaraj. It was a move  by Pawan Rajbhar that Ajinkya sent across the middle of the D for Selvaraj to score with a dive.

Navy are the runners-up of Murugappa Cup and Surjit Hockey this year while they lost in the semi-final of Beighton Cup to Army XI.

Down by an early Gursahibjit goal for Railways, Indian Air Force got a penalty stroke in the 10th minute when a goalbound Jagath Nachappa was blocked by Pratap Lakra. Usually, dependable defender Manip Kerketta scooped the ball straight into goalkeeper Amritpal's safe hands.

Air Force, with a number of players on the injured list, never recovered to come back into the play.

Once Pratap Lakra produced an all-along the ground shot to sound the Air Force board off Railways third penalty corner in the 39th minute it was all over the bar shouting for the airmen.

Railways scored again indirectly following their fourth penalty corner with Prabhdeep pushing the ball in a goalmouth melee to Ravi to round off the tally early in the last quarter.

On Tuesday, captain Jasjit, Prabhdeep (man of the match) and Pratap Lakra were outstanding for Railways alongside Rajbeer in his brief appearance. Pradeep was the most hardworking forward for Railways.

IAF missed six penalty corners, four of these in last quarter, thanks to poor feeble pushes by injector , Kunal Yadav and Amrit Tirkey's dependence on indirect hits where Jagath Nachappa was found wanting. Air Force team officials Manish and Sanjay Singh put the blame on very crowded Hockey India schedule for their poor bench strength because of no recovery time for injuries.

Tags : Nehru Hockey, Pratap Lakra, Railways, Indian Navy, Murugappa Cup