0
PIA 2 Police 0
PTCL 1 Sindh Colours 1
NBP 4 Army 1
ABL 5 Punjab Colours 1
Wapda 7 Punjab Whites 1
HBL 14 Sindh Whites 0
LAHORE, March 31: Defending champions PIA carved out a 2-0 win over Police to enliven their hopes for a semifinals berth in the 49th national hockey championship at the National Hockey Stadium Sunday.
PIA, who suffered a 3-0 shock defeat against PTCL Saturday, went ahead in the 17th minute when Irfan Mahmood scored after a well calculated pass from Shahbaz Ahmad.
PIA’s opening goal sped up the tempo of the game as both sides launched aggressive moves only to lack final touches.
However, PIA managed to double the lead in the 51st minute when Kamran Ashraf sounded the board after a skirmish on goal mouth.
While Police wasted all the nine short-corner, PIA misfired six.
Sindh Colours upset giant-killers PTCL by holding them to a one all draw.
PTCL took the lead in the 13th minute when Shakeel Abbasi scored through a field move. Sindh Colours got the equalizer in the 40th minute when Jabran Siddique scored from a solo effort.
Both the teams equally shared 10 penalty corners between them but failed to capitalize from any.
Two goals each by Olympians Tahir Zaman and Mohammad Nadeem helped National Bank outclass Army 4-1. It was bankers third successive victory and put them on top of Group ‘A’.
Tahir Zaman scored both his goals by converting penalty-strokes in the 4th and 18th minutes to put the bankers 2-0 ahead at lemon time.
After breather, Nadeem converted the 6th penalty-corner in the 40th minute but four minutes later, Army reduced the margin through Mohammad Irfan.
Nadeem completed the tally in the 62nd minute.
Allied Bank Limited (ABL) thrashed Punjab Colours 5-1 to also earn their third victory. They are on top of Group “B”.
The bankers were put ahead by Akmal Naveed who scored first of his two goals in the 12th minute. Naveed Alam doubled the lead in the 18th minute before Akmal got his second in the 31st to comfortably place Allied Bank 3-0 at half-time.
In the second half, Pakistan skipper Mohammad Sarwar scored a field goal to increase bankers lead to 4-0. Four minutes later, Zahid Afzal made it 5-0 before Punjab Colours pulled one back through Gul Hasnain in the 59th minute.
Wapda earned their second victory in the competition when they defeated Punjab Whites 7-1. The winners led 5-0 at half-time.
Shahid Rabbani scored three goals while Rehan Butt and Mudassar Ali Khan added two goals each.
Punjab Whites’ only goal was scored by Sheraz Khurshid in the 49th minute.
Last year’s losing finalists Habib Bank were on a goal-scoring spree when they toyed Sindh Whites 14-0.
HBL scored six goals in the first half and added eight in the second.
Pakistan’s striker Kashif Jawad contributed seven goals (15th, 25th, 29th, 38th, 56th, 59th and 67th minutes).
Asad Qureshi (21st and 27th), Liaquat Ali (54th and 63rd), Sohail Abbas (18th), Haider Hussain (50th minute) and Naveed Iqbal (62nd minute) were the other scorers.
Tuesday’s fixture:
Army v Sindh Whites; Police v Punjab Colours (both matches start at 12.10pm); HBL v Punjab Whites; PIA vs Sindh Colours (both matches start at 2.00pm); NBP vs Wapda; ABL vs PTCL (both matches start at 4.00pm).
