Railways, Hyderabad score

Indian Railways blanked Andhra Pradesh 4-0 while hosts Hyderabad trounced Bihar 2-0 to register their third consecutive wins in Group 'A' in the National hockey championship on Monday.

Anoop Tirkey drew first blood for Railways in the 4th minute in the encounter against Andhra and both the teams played safe to end the first half at 1-0.

In the second half, Brijnev Singh scored a hat-trick by scoring in the 51st, 56th and 62nd minutes to give Railways a 4-0 verdict.

Hyderabad, the other contender for the top slot of Group 'A', blanked Bihar by scoring a goal in each session. Ramesh scored off a pass from Paul Moses in the 22nd minute while Moses converted a penalty stroke in the 49th minute.

In the third match, ITBP defeated SAIL 3-1, with Veer Singh striking in the 7th and 62nd minutes and Raman Kumar scoring in the 67th minute for ITBP. Satvinder Singh, however, reduced the margin for SAIL by hitting through the bars in 68th minute.

Railways and Hyderabad, with three wins and two more games to go, are leading the table.

In Bombay, Mumbai registered an unimpressive 2-1 victory over Maharashtra in the opening group 'D' of the championship

Mumbai shot into lead in the 11th minute, when Olympian and skipper Sabu Varkey initiated a fine move from the centre and passed the ball inside the circle, where Prem Kumar deflected the pass to unmarked Leonard Pereira who put the ball into goal.

Maharashtra came closer to equalising the score when P Barla failed to intercept a powerful free-hit by Ajit Lakra from 25-yards.

Mumbai players lacked coordination and rhythm though they re-grouped themselves a bit during the second half while Maharashtra impressed with their skills, but failed to get targets.

However, they managed to equalise in the 31st minute when Naman Bage gave a pass from right to Sachin Godse, who promptly diverted it into goal. The half time score read 1-1.

After resumption, Mumbai intensified their moves and succeeded in the 51st minute, when M K Prakash scooped the ball into goal on a penalty corner.

Mumbai got total six penalty-corners, but were successful in converting only one of them.