February 14, 2002	Thursday	Zilhaj 1, 1422

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LAHORE, Feb 13: Five goals, including a hat trick, by inside-left Muhammad Zubair enabled Punjab to defeat NWFP 6-3 in the Inter- provincial  under-16 hockey championships, final at the National Hockey Stadium Wednesday.

The remaining goal for Punjab was scored by Ghulam Abbas, while for the losers centre-forward Yasir scored two and full-back Sajjad Khan scored a goal .

Zubair, younger brother of Pakistan team captain Mohammad Sarwar was declared the man of the final.

Zubair put Punjab ahead in the 12th  minute  by converting the first penalty-corner on an indirect try.

NWFP  struck the equaliser when Yasir scored a field  goal in the 16th minute. One minute later, Punjab were again ahead when Abbas capitalised the third short-corner in the 17th minute to make it 2-1 which lasted till the breather.

After resumptions, Zubair was the dominant force who not only accelerated the pace of attack but also scored four consecutive goals striking in 43rd, 56th, 61st and the 62nd minute which gave his team a commendable 6-1 lead.

In the closing moments of the game, NWFP scored two goals in as many minutes but in vain. Yasir scored his second goal in the 67th minute while Sajjad banged home in the 69th minute, converting the 8th penalty-corner.

Earlier, Islamabad struggled to beat Azad Kashmir 3-2 to take third position. Islamabad led 2-1 at half time.

For  Islamabad,  right-half  Atif Lodhi (21st minute), inside-left  Adnan Malik (29th minute) and spearhead Mansoor Ali (58th minute) were the scorers.

For Azad  Kashmir,  inside-left Zahid (9th minute) and centre-forward Irfan (51st minute) reduced the margin.

  Despite limited entries of the teams, the championships was held surprisingly on knockout basis instead of either on league basis or round robin.

The latter two systems if  adopted would have provided good exposure to the youngsters to gain  more experience of standardised hockey.