Railways, Hyderabad qualify

Indian Railways and hosts Hyderabad on Wednesday scored emphatic wins over ITBP and Andhra Pradesh respectively in Group A league matches to qualify for the Super League of the 60th Senior National hockey championship.

The two teams, invincible in this phase, will clash on Thursday to decide who finishes first and second in the group.

On the penultimate day, which witnessed one-sided matches, Indian Railways trounced ITBP 5-2, Hyderabad blanked Andhra 4-0, while SAIL defeated Bihar 3-1.

In the first match, Indian Railways had thrown ITBP out of track by scoring three goals in the first half with M Ekka beating the goalkeeper in the 19th minute and Sanjeev Kumar Singh repeating the feat in the 27th minute. Chandrapal increased the Railway score by hitting between the posts in the very next minute as Railways led 3-0 at half-time.

M Bikramjit Singh (Rlys) found the mark in the 47th minute and converted the penalty-corner with ease. Ramkumar of ITBP replied in the same coin in the 51st minute and four minutes later Railways too did not miss the penalty conversion chance with Brijnev Singh netting with accuracy to give Railways a comfortable 5-1 lead.

In the 61st minute, Emanuel reduced the margin by converting a penalty corner.