RAWALPINDI: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) on Sunday pressed ahead with their winning spree in the Chief of the Army Staff Challenge Hockey Cup here at the Army Hockey Stadium.

Hot favorites PIA beat Police 4-2 while NBP blanked Army (Juniors) 5-0 with SSGC securing a 2-0 win against Navy in a match marked by hyperactive atmosphere as players of both teams yelled at each other.

In the opening match of the day, PIA struck a penalty corner in the 2nd minute to get lead before Awais Rehman doubled the lead in the 16th minute with Atif Mushtaq netting the third for the national flag carriers.

Police, however, made counterattack soon after conceding the third goal with Atif Baig’s field goal reducing the margin in the 33rd minute. Atif again struck a field goal in the 53rd minute to press the airliners. Notwithstanding, PIA’s Awais stopped advances from police by scoring fourth goal in the 56th minute to finish 4-2.

The second match between Pakistan Navy and SSGC marred by a brawl between rivals went in favour of the latter with SSGC’s Akbar Ali scoring the first field goal in the 7th minute to give an edge to his team which ran into stiff resistance from the sailors who flexed their muscles to effectively combat inroads from their rivals. Notwithstanding, Mohammad Sabir scored the second goal in the 48th minute to complete tally of the match.

SSGC’s fullback Usman Tariq was shown red card. When Navy was awarded a penalty corner their Ali Shan unintentionally hit Usman who instead of showing sportsmanship spirit got furious and smashed his stick against Ali while shouting abuse at his rival with the unpleasant scene not only forcing umpires to show Usman red card but also resulted in the lapse of several minutes during the match after which tournament director also imposed one match ban on Usman.

The last match — between NBP and Army (Juniors) — was a one-sided affair as NBP overhauled Army (Juniors) 5-0. After taking lead in the 11th minute through Shah Irshad the bankers scored four more goals in the third quart.

Tauseeq Arshad converted a penalty stroke in the 32nd minute with Mohammed Abbas striking in the 34th on a penalty corner while Sibtain Raza and Abbas scored in the 40th and 44th minutes respectively to finish 5-0 in style.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2015

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