Air India fly too high for ONGC
The match was supposed to be anything but lop-sided. Seventy minutes later, it turned out to be nothing but lop-sided.
The Air India got another step closer to this year’s BHA Super Division Mumbai Hockey League title by handing a 8-3 thrashing to leaders ONGC at the Mahindra Stadium on Tuesday.
Air India, following the Tuesday’s victory, share the top spot with ONGC with 17 points but have an advantage since the airmen have one match more to play.
What swept ONGC off their feet was Air India’s speed and the latter’s persistent efforts for penalty corners.
Even Air India coach K Poonacha agreed. “We always look for as many penalty corners as possible. But this scoreline was definitely not what we expected,” he said.
Earlier, drag-flicker Len Aiyappa sounded the board first up in the sixth minute converting the team’s second penalty corner. In the next 11 minutes, Aiyappa converted two more short corners.
Five minutes later, Air India Gurvinder Singh Chandi perfectly timed his pass from the right flank into the centre to Joga Singh. In a bid to cover the post from a possible strike from Chandi, ONGC ‘keeper Kamaldeep Singh left it unguarded paving way for Joga Singh to take the Air India score to 4.
Aiyappa kicked off the scoring in the second half too and no points for guessing that it was off a penalty corner.
The four goals have taken the Aiyappa’s tally to ten, highest this season in the tournament.
But what really stole the show were two gems by Air India’s new recruit Bruno Lugun. A product of their academy, Lugun effected two reverse hits within a minute’s span of each other. In the first one, Lugun got around an ONGC defender a full 360 degree and unleashed a reverse hit that had the ONGC custodian dazed.
The second one was even better since Lugun, who was at a very acute angle of the post, managed to send the ball past the hapless ‘keeper to sound the boards.
Joga Singh scored last of the eight goals for the eventual winners in the 53rd minute.
The three consolation goals for ONGC were scored by Gurpreet Singh, Sandeep Antil and Anurag Raghuvanshi in 12th, 50th and 57th minute respectively.
In another match of the day, Western Railway beat Bombay Customs 3-2, thanks to strikes by captain Anand Sondkar, Hardeep Singh and Chandrakesh K. Osaf-ur-Rehman and Mohammad Ishaq reduced the margin for Customs.