Air India defeat Uttar Pradesh in Senior National Hockey Championship, 3-2: Hockey Recap
Air India defeated Uttar Pradesh (UP) by 3-2 in the ongoing Senior National Hockey Championship that took place on June 14, in Bhopal.
Air India could have been eliminated from the current event, if Sameer Dad had not made the victory possible in the match against Uttar Pradesh.
It is vital to mention here that the team Air India is always an alluring squad in the domestic fixtures with a combination of national and international players. On the other side, Uttar Pradesh is also one of the toughest squads of the championship.
However, it was a different style of game from both the sides. The players from UP, which included Vikas Sharma, Pramod Kumar and Danish Mujtaba, played on the half-line that could not allow them to add scores for their team. The UP team was missing
their usual real attacking line on the field. On the other side, the team Air India was banking on their experienced players rather than any set-out game-strategy.
In the early minutes of the first half, Air India’s strikers, Hamza Mujtaba and Mohd Amir Khan, carried out attacks against UP side, but to no avail. Gurbaj Singh of UP was not active on the right-flank of the field, while the attackers from centre-field
and left-flank found a gap to get into the defensive circle of Air India. In this whole game plan, Hamza unleashed a dribbling shot at the goal by dodging the goal-keeper’s pads and opened the goal at 1-0. In the later time, UP was awarded a penalty-stroke
after an Air India player committed a foul in the D-Circle. Diwakar Ram, without making any mistake, sent the ball through the crossbars and doubled the tally.
Finally, Air India’s ace, Sameer Dad, managed to get into the defensive circle of UP and struck a low-flying hit at the corner of the cage and reducing the score down to a single goal by 2-1.
In the second half of the game, Shivendra scored another goal and doubled the tally for Air India and leveled the score at 2-2. Shivendra created a gifted chance for Dhanraj Pillay, for the lead-goal, who did not miss the opportunity and took the lead
in the game by 3-2.
In the dying moments of the second half, UP’s Diwakar received a severe injury and was taken off the field on a stretcher that caused them huge loss. As the final whistle sounded, Air India team won the competition and as well confirmed a spot in the
quarter-final stage.
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