Air India trounce EME 9-0; TN, IOB, ONGC also record wins

Mumbai, Apr 14 (UNI) Air India, led by their captain Len Aiyappa who scored three goals, drubbed hapless EME Jalandhar 9-0 in a pool G match in the quarterfinal league stage of the 45th All India Bombay Gold Cup hockey tournament played at the Mahindra Stadium here today.

In the other matches, ONGC blanked out Indian Air Force by a 4-0 margin in a Pool I match, while Tamil Nadu beat local team Central Railway in a pool H match by the odd goal in three. Indian Overseas Bank stunned fancied Karnataka XI 3-1 in a Pool J match.

The Air India-EME Jalandhar match was a hapless mismatch with the Air Indian players getting all over the EME defence scoring at will to notch up a huge victory.

Air India started the scoring in the 18th minute with Joga Singh scoring a field goal to put them ahead. This was the start of the massacre as within the next 16 minutes, Air India shot in four more goals to go into half time at 5-0.

The massacre continued after half time with Air India shooting in four more goals to win by a huge 9-0 margin.

For Air India, the goal scorers were Len Aiyappa with three and Harshpreet Singh, Davinder Kumar, Dilbagh Singh, Joga Singh, Gavin Ferreira and Ajmer Singh scoring a goal each.

In the other matches, ONGC also had an easy outing as they blanked out the Indian Air Force by a 4-0 margin with Sunder Singh helping himself to a hattrick and Amarjeet Singh completing the scoring.

A brace by Arul Stalin David was enough for Tamil Nadu to score a 2-1 win over Central Railway. Tamil Nadu XI began the scoring in the 32nd minute with Arul Stalin David converting his team's first penalty corner.

Central Railway, however fought back with Rashid Ali equalising in the 37th minute. However, off the fourth penalty corner in the 61st minute, Arul Stalin David once again sounded the boards to give his team a well earned win.

In the fourth match of the day, Indian Overseas Bank overcame a strong Karnataka XI to win by 3-1. IOB started the scoring through G Gopinath in the 17th minute only to see Karnataka strike back with the equaliser in the 23rd minute through Kamlesh. IOB however struck two goals within two minutes in the 38th and 40th minute to shut out the match in their favour with D Felix and M Saravanakumar being the goal scorers.

UNI