A-I suffer a stroke

BPCL, however, rallied to bridge the gap with a goal towards the fag end of the game by Sabu Varkey and then emerged victorious by converting all their five strokes in the tie-breaker which was resorted to after 15 minutes of extra-time ended goalless.

The goal-getters for BPCL in the `stroke’ duel were M Prakash, A Vaman, Ravi Nayakar, S Jilani and Anuraj Raghuvanshi. Cornelius D’Costa, Surinder Singh, Kishore Kumar and Inder Salaria converted for A-I while Madan Vishwanath pushed wide.

In a fast paced game, BPCL played with a packed defence and relied on the hefty hits from the deep by their defenders to build up their raids. Two such counter-attacks fetched them their first-half goals.

First, in the 21st minute, a characteristic individual thrust down the middle resulted in a stroke after defender Inder Salaria used the reverse side of his stick to foil Nayakar who was well-placed. The resultant stroke was converted by Raghuvanshi with a confident push to the left of A-I goalkeeper Edgar Mascarenhas.

BPCL made it 2-0 five minutes later. Left-half Prakash sent captain Nayakar racing down the left-flank with a long scoop. Nayakar covered good ground and then squared the ball for Deepak Sharma at the top of the circle. Deepak burst in and beat onrushing goal-leeper Edgar Mascarenhas with a low scoop.

Varkey could have built up a commanding lead in the 30th minute. But He failed to getter the better of Mascarenhas from hand-shaking distance after Nayakar had beaten the entire defence with diagonal pass following their lone first-half penalty corner.

A-I pulled a goal back in the 39th minute following their seventh penalty-corner. Davinder tapped home the ball from close after Cornelius’ drive was deflected towards him of a defender’s stick.

Davinder then made it 2-2 for A-I when he beat BPCL ‘keeper Bopanna with a top-of-the circle shot, following a fine move down the left flank between Salaria and inside-left Rajesh Chouhan.

A-I then forged ahead in the 46th minute following another penalty-corner. Kishore Kumar unleashed an angular drive from the right and Cornelius, who was unmarked at the far post, deflected the ball in.

BPCL were then outplayed for the rest of the game. But a stray raid in the 64th minute fetched them the equaliser. Sharma and Nayakar combined well before the latter harnessed Varkey. The last-named struck the equaliser with an acute angle shot from the right side of the goal.

Goal-keeper Bopanna then came twice to his side’s rescue when he thwarted attempts by Davinder and Aranha in the extra-time period.

Final line-up: BSF vs BPCL