IOB wrest title

The Bangalore side did manage to add to its tally once more after the seventh minute effort by Kiran, but by then IOB had taken the match well into their grip at least in terms of dominating the proceedings.

IOB’s Vimal Nathan, who deservingly was declared the player of the tournament had a none too impressive start in the match, but found his feet as the match progressed.

IOB, who trailed at the cross over, hit back strongly on resumptionrestoring parity two minutes into the second half. Anandan capitalised the opportunity of a melee at the Canara Bank goal to find the netting during his side’s penalty corner. Two penalty corners and four minutes later, Sasi Kiran gave IOB the lead with a stinging drive.

The match was almost reduced to an one-sided contest after IOB went ahead, except for the occasion, when umpire H Gunashekar came into the limelight by awarding a stroke in favour of Canara Bank in the 55th minute.

The umpire penalised Mohammed Jameel for lifting his stick above the shoulder while clearing a goal-bound ball from the stick of Canara Bank’s John Verghese. There were a couple of ugly scenes on the pitch with the IOB players protesting the ‘stroke vociferously. Venkatesan was the most obstreperous of them using his stick to jostle the umpire around.

He was shown the yellow card and was asked to cool his heels and temper for the entire match on the sidelines.