March 27, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 7, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

KARACHI, March 26: Habib Bank (HBL) on Monday emerged as group B champions in the National Hockey Championship after a 2-1 victory over a stubborn Pakistan Army side, thanks to two-goal Rashid Imran who was in prolific form for the bankers.

Both sides, who have already qualified for the quarter-finals, started the match with the bankers taking a flying start through a Rashid goal in the fourth minute which gave soldiers a rude shock at Hockey Club of Pakistan.

Without giving Army any chance to recover, HBL raced to a 2-0 lead in the 11th minute when Rashid converted a penalty stroke following a serious infringement by Army.

Just when it seemed that it would be a one-sided affair, Army retaliated in the 20th minute when Mohammad Saleem found the cage off a rebound on a penalty corner.But the short corner conversion proved merely a consolation for Army who, despite coming close to scoring several times, returned in vain.

While Saleem was the only scorer for the soldiers, he became villain later as he squandered several promising openings throughout the second half.

Army literally pinned the bankers down in their own half for the most part of the second session, but all they could do was to miss sitters from close range. Saleem was in action five minutes into second half only to shot over the bar. Just five minutes later, while HBL should have gone 3-1 ahead, Qavi Khan’s full-blooded hit rattled the woodwork.

While Shahbaz Ali’s effort was blocked by Army goalkeeper Ali Rahman without much trouble, it was Rashid who failed this time through a reverse hit.

The HBL defenders had to work overtime when sturdy soldiers launched several scathing attacks but couldn’t find the equaliser despite number of the opportunities they had. Saleem’s blistering hit was hardly stopped by the bankers in the 55th minute, while Army’s Mohammad Rashid could not connect a perfect cross.

Army might have pulled the leveller had HBL goalkeeper Aijaz Khokhar not thwarted the attempt by Saleem in the 60th minute. Aijaz was once again vigilant two minutes later when he kept Saleem at bay.

Army were reduced to 10 players two minutes before fulltime when Ramzan was yellow-carded for a serious foul on HBL’s Junaid Hussain.

Helped by two goals from Ishtiaq Ahmad, Steel Mills reached the quarter-finals after a 4-2 win over Quetta.

The winners were 1-0 up through Ishtiaq’s opening goal in the 21st minute before Mohammad Naseer doubled the lead seven minutes later. Ishtiaq got his double two minutes after the break.

Quetta reduced the margin exactly ten minutes later through Naeemuddin and Mohammad Amin made it 3-2. Steel Mills sealed the fate of the match three minutes later when Akbar Hussain netted.

Wapda, who have already reached last eight stage, were given a testing time before a narrow 5-4 victory against Sargodha courtesy three-goal Mohammad Khalid.

Khalid was on target in the 16th, 24th and 35th minutes, while Asif Michael found the cage in the 20th and 42nd minutes. Adeel Akram (41st and 53rd minutes), Naseer Naveed (3rd minute), Malik Ashraf (40th minute) scored from Sargodha.

In their last pool match, three-goal Adnan Hamid gave Hyderabad a 4-1win against Abbottabad.

Apart from Adnan (5th, 47th and 64th minutes), Saleem Jr netted in the 51st minute.

Faisal Ali got consolation for the losers in the 55th minute.

Tuesday’s fixtures:

Pakistan Navy v Rawalpindi at HCP at 12.00pm; PIA v Peshawar at HCP at 2.00pm; SSGC v Karachi at HCP at 4.00pm.