New Delhi: Indian Oil IOC) routed Punjab National Bank (PNB) in a high scoring quarter finals matchup to make it to the penultimate round of the 22nd Lal Bahadur Shastri Tournament played here on Thursday.

Indian Oil defeated PNB 6-4 in a well contested encounter and the highlight of the match was a superb hat trick by Affan Yousuf (IOC) and Hardeep (PNB). IOC started the match well and should have scored very early in the match had not been for some great saves by PNB’s goalie Samsher Singh.

But they were not kept waiting for the goal for a long and they drew the first blood in the 20th minute through Affan. Eight minutes later they got the second goal through Hamza Mustafa. Affan scored his goal of the match in the 31st minute to take his team to establish a 3-0 lead.

Teams went into the lemon break with no more goals being after that. After the change of ends, IOC started from where they left and got their fourth goal within three minutes into the second half. Pushed to the wall, PNB sensed the urgency and changed their tactic and started to attack on all cylinders. It brought them reward as they got the breakthrough in the 42nd minute of the match through Hardeep, who dribbled past three defenders to find the nets. Four minutes later, Hardeep scored again to reduce the lead to two goals.

Both the teams who adopted a attacking went close to score but failed. Finally IOC broke the jinx and scored off a penalty corner in the 57th through Gurjinder. As the end neared the final whistle the match started becoming more and more interesting. Both Affan and Hardeep completed their hat trick. As the match was just a minute away from the whistle, PNB picked up their fourth goal to reduce the lead by two goals, but was not enough to see them through.

Shraddha Bagdwal
Indian Sports News