Pune: Nine days after 27 teams began the quest, it is down to four—two from north and two championing the cause of east in the 1st Hockey India Junior Men’s National hockey championship at the Balewadi Sports Complex Synthetic turf here.

After Tuesday’s rest, Punjab meets Odisha in the first semifinal, while Jharkhand takes on Haryana in the second here on Wednesday—all with contrasting styles of play.

Punjab looks most compact side who play the vibrant brand of hockey that the state is known for with captain Talwinder Singh controlling the game from the middle.

Haryana is brash and brutal. Even though that does not guarantee a win every time the team takes to the turf, but their approach has been positive, specially needed to silence a team like Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy, which mixes two styles nicely but are yet to get their grip.

On the other side, Odisha and Jharkhand rely mostly on the tribal players, who make up 80 percent of their squads and play the sport in the true sense of team work. Even though Odisha hasn’t had enough match practice as their pool was reduced to just two teams, this team led by Stanli Victor Minz should qualify as dark horse of the championship.

Jharkhand must be the least liked team here after they defeated host Maharashtra, but captain Kiro Xess has used his arsenal well with the strikers responding well to his plans. Anil Xaxa and Rajin Kandulna, who scored the golden goal against Maharashtra, will be the key players to watch out for.

Two strikers Mandeep Singh of Punjab and Malak Singh of Haryana must qualify as scoring machines given that the two have so far scored 14 and 9 goals respectively in the three league matches and one quarterfinal.

It was Mandeep who struck the quintuple on the opening day of the championship against Puducherry and ended up scoring seven goals in that match. Malak has been more restraint, but he too got a quadruple to show for, scoring six in all against Gujarat.

Even though Malak was not among those who scored against Madhya Pradesh in the quarterfinal, he was instrumental in setting up the moves that floored the high-flying MP team.

Hansraj Ramphal, Ranjit Singh and Naveen Antil have been among goals, so when Haryana takes on Jharkhand, it surely will be a clash of styles and attitude.

Wednesday’s Fixtures: SF1: Punjab v Odisha –12 noon.
SF2: Jharkhand v Haryana –3 pm