Manipur dazzles, Uttaranchal, Orissa win, Bhopal holds Patiala

Chennai, Jun 23 (UNI) Close contests marked the beginning of the second phase of league matches in the Junior National Hockey Championship here this morning.

In Group D Uttaranchal owed a great deal to striker Manoj Rawat's spectacular goal to score a 2-1 hard fought win over Rajasthan to collect full points, while Bhopal, down by two goals, came back strongly to hold Patiala to a 2-2 draw and share the honours in Group H.

Orissa defeated Mumbai 4-1 in Group F and Manipur dazzled in the SAF Games Astro-turf stadium with a breezy 10-2 win over their north-eastern counterpart Tripura in a Group B contest.

The match between Uttaranchal and Rajasthan was quite abosorbing.

Uttaranchal went into the lead in the 12th minute through Ramesh Kumar before Sunil Kumar neutralised for Rajasthan six minutes later.

The contest gained momentum as both the teams worked hard for the matchwinner and Manoj Rawat did the trick in the seventh minute of second half with a peach of a goal to seal the fate of Rajasthanis.

Results: Group D: Uttaranchal-2 (Ramesh Kumar-12, Manoj Rawat-42) bt Rajasthan-1 (Sunil Kumar-18) Group B: Manipur-10 (Dh Hemjit singh-1, Adeba Singh-2, Joy Chandrasingh-4, Abung-2, Tarun Kumar Singh-1) bt Tripura-2 (Barnabus Neg-1, Deep Chand Tigga-1) Group F: Orissa-3 (Deepak Ekka-16,47, Sunil Kujur-37) bt Mumbai-1 (Ajaz Quareshi-39) Group H: Bhopal (Nadeem Baig-32, Junaid Ansari-58) drew with Patiala (Amritvir Singh-12-pc, Kanwarjeet Singh-19).

UNI