Dhyanchand clinch Bhagat hockey title

 

 

 

Dhyanchand Sports Academy worked hard to beat a fighting Central Excise Recreation Club (CERC) to clinch the Vishal Mohankumar Bhagat memorial invitational hockey tournament. In an exciting summit clash Dhyanchand defeated CERC by two goals to nil to claim the crown. Though the title was won by Dhyanchand, it was CERC boys who won the hearts by their superlative display of grit and skills at their defence line. Dhyanchand had to toil hard for more than half an hour to find gap in CERC defence.

 

After failing to score in first two quarters, Syyed Fahim broke the deadlock in 40th minute with his trademark penalty corner conversion. The lead was doubled in the 53rd minute when Faiz Khan beautifully tapped a ball from the right towards an unmarked Thakurdas Goplani who made no mistake in guiding the ball across the goalline. Dhyanchand’s Asif Rahim was sent off with a red card after he argued a decision and also shoved the umpire in the 47th minute of the match. In the third place match, Eagle Sporting Club beat MOIL XI 6-5 via sudden death.

 

At the end of regulation time, both the teams scored a goal each. MOIL’s Bhushan Khanodkar’s 19th minute strike was negated by Eagle’s Rohit Chaturvedi two minutes before final whistle. In tie-breaker, Rohit Chaturvedi, Navin Kathoute, Kaustubh Baradiya, Lalit Darwai, and Mohit Kathoute scored for Eagle while for MOIL, Prashant Therukar , Golu Pande, Pralhad Todkar and Bhushan Khanorkar and Vishal Sahare scored. In sudden death, Sahare missed for MOIL while Mohit found the net for Eagle. Yogesh Yesur, Satish Fulsunge and Ankit Tiwari were the officials of the final. Anilkumar Meher, Chief Area Manager, Indian Oil was the chief guest of the prize distribution function. Mahesh Bang, Vinod Chaturvedi, Nirmal Maheshwari, Sanjay Paliwal, VHA Administrator TN Sidhra, Vishwajeet Bhagat, Noel Joseph, Sanjay Lokhande, Yagya Singh and others were also present.