Gurpreet Singhs superlative skillsguided Bharat Petroleum to a narrow 3-2 win over Indian Air Force and into the semi-finals of the All India Sahibzada Ajit Singh Hockey Champions Trophy being played at Olympian Prithipal Singh Stadium,PAU on Wednesday. He scored two goals to hand his team a well-deserved win. The match started on an attacking note as both the teams made some attacking moves. Harwant Singh of Indian Air Force scored the first goal of the match when he netted a field goal in the ninth minute of the match. A goal down,the BPCL forwards made some individual rallies into the opposition half and their efforts soon paid dividends. Gurpreet Singh scored the equaliser for the Mumbai team in the 22nd minute of the match to make the matters even. The first half ended with both the teams tied on 1-1.The second half of the match started on an attacking note as Hari Prasad scored the second goal for BPCL in the 37th minute of the match. Indian Air Force did not lose heart as their forwards made some fine attacks into the opposition half. Virender scored the equaliser for the Indian Air Force team in the 43rd minute of the match to make the scoreboard read 2-2. Gurpreet Singh then scored his second goal of the match for the BPCL team in the 49th minute to set up a narrow 3-2 win for the Mumbai team. In the second match of the day,Indian Oil played a 3-3 draw with Indian Army to advance into the semi-finals. It was a close encounter as five goals out of six came with the help of penalty corners. Hamza Murtaza opened the account for Indian Oil when he converted a penalty corner in the 40th minute of the match. Chandan scored the equaliser for Indian Army in the 54th minute of the match. Chandan scored his second goal of the match as he netted a goal in the 56th minute to put Indian Army ahead by 2-0. Indian Oil then made some attacking moves and Afzal Yousuf scored two goals for the team. Sunil Yadav scored the third goal for Indian Oil in the 62nd minute of the match. Milan scored the third goal for the Indian Army team to make the scoreboard read 3-3. The first semi-final will be played between Punjab National Bank and BPCL at 4 pm and the second semi-final will be played between Indian Oil and Namdhari XI on October 26.
