TN clear Customs hurdle

Central Excise and Customs who managed to hold Tamil Nadu for 40 minutes were out of the tournament with six points from three matches.

In the whole of the first session, Tamil Nadu had a look at the rival goal only twice. Central Exciseacirc;euro;trade;s Anson Thomas did a perfect job in marking Olympian Md Riyaz and followed him like a shadow which upset Tamil Naduacirc;euro;trade;s scheme of things. With Riyaz being the fulcrum from where their attack originated, Tamil Nadu failed to find the rhythm and struggled up front. Both Paul Kirubakaran and Kevin had a shy at the goal but failed to put the team ahead.

After a barren first half, strikers Paul and Kevin combined well to mount pressure on Excise goal and one such move resulted in a penalty corner which was smartly converted by Dinesh Naik. A few minutes later, international Rahul Singh came close to score the equaliser following a long corner but his shot missed the post narrowly.

Later, Prabakaran after a good solo run failed to strike as his scoop went over, and seconds later his shot went wide. However, in the 52nd minute he made amends for his earlier lapse to shoot home the second goal for Tamil Nadu after being put into possession by Kevin.

Later, a perfectly-timed precision pass by Md Riyaz to Kirubakaran enabled the latter to sound the boards while Thirumalvalavan rounded off the tally through a penalty stroke awarded for a stick-check by Central Excise goalkeeper on Kirubakaran in the 63rd minute.

Midway through the second half both the teams indulged in rough tackling which was made worse by poor handling of the situation by the umpires. After one such incident, both the skippers were shown yellow cards.

Tamil Naduacirc;euro;trade;s L Prabhakaran, Md Riyaz, Dinesh Naik and Radhakrishnan and Central Exciseacirc;euro;trade;s Anson Thomas, Vinod Chinnappa and Tarlochan Singh were the players to receive yellow cards. Tarlochan got marching orders after he was shown a second yellow in the 40th minute.

Earlier, in an inconsequential pool G match, Patiala ended their league phase with a 6-3 win over Delhi. Both the teams bowed out of the tourney. The highlight of the match was a brilliant performance by 17-year old Prabjot Singh of Patiala who scored four goals and set up the other two. Patiala struck in the very fourth minute. Fed by Dharmpal Singh diagonal, Prabjot Singh sprinted into the striking circle and dodged past a hard-working Rajinder Singh in the rival defence to open the account for Patiala. He increased the tally in the 21st minute through another field goal but Delhi struck one back immediately when Mahesh Dayal converted a short corner.

After crossover, Delhi managed to ward off the rival attacks and forced the equaliser in the 49th minute through a Rajinder Singh penalty corner. However, Patiala went ahead scoring twice in the space of two minutes and pumped in two more in the dying minutes. First Prabjot Singh passed to an unmarked Sanjay Kumar who made no mistake in finding the target and later Prabjot himself scored twice before moving in tandem with Sanjay Kumar to set up for Deepak Sonkhla to complete the formalities. Earlier, Rajinder Singh scored the third goal for Delhi.

In the morning, in a group E match of academic interest, Madhya Bharat defeated Jammu and Kashmir 6-2.