New Delhi: The match between Punjab National Bank and Railways ended on a 1-1 draw in the 27th Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey Tournament being played at Shivaji Stadium in New Delhi, on Wednesday.

Both sides missed on several chances and even failed to convert many penalty corners into a goal. Of the five chances of penalty corners that Railways earned, it could convert only one, while PNB also failed to convert three out of four PCs that it earned but finally managed to strike the board to equalise the score through the short corner in the 40th minute of the game.

Gauravjit scored the first goal for Railways in 32nd minute through a penalty corner which gave the Railways a lead of 1-0. At the start of the second half, PNB equalised the score in the 40th minute when Bhagat Singh grabbed the opportunity and struck the board through, converting the PC.

The match ended in draw with 1-1.

Seshe Gowda was adjudged as the best player of the match and a trophy for the same was presented to him by Anil Shastri, Former MP and son of late PM Lal Bahadur Shastri.

PNB coach Govind Kanojia said, “Our forward could grabbed the chances offered to them and the goal conversion through penalty corner was also poor.” He hoped that his team would perform better as the tournament progressed. Meanwhile, he expressed happiness over his team’s performance against the young Railways team which had many international players.

Raj Kumar, Team Manager, PNB, said “Fitness is an issue for us and we need to work on that.”

Prabhakar Singh, Coach, Indian Railways seemed to be satisfied with his young team. He said “Fitness of our players is not an issue but we need to work on conversion of penalty corner as we could convert only one goal out of the five chances that we got.”

In the other match played today, Air India beat Delhi XI by 3-1.Vikram Pillay of Air India was adjudged man-of-the-match.