Hat-tricks by Gurpreet, Macheiah in Tegh Bahadur Hockey

A hat-trick of goals each from Gurpreet Singh and P P Macheiah helped Bharat Petroleum and ONGC score thumping wins over local outfits Western Railway and Union Bank of India respectively

Mumbai: A hat-trick of goals each from Gurpreet Singh and P P Macheiah helped Bharat Petroleum and ONGC score thumping wins over local outfits Western Railway and Union Bank of India respectively in the 11th PMC Bank-Guru Tegh Bahadur Gold Cup All India Hockey Tournament yesterday.

While Mumbai-based BPCL outclassed UBI 6-1 in Pool A, after leading 2-0 at half time, Delhi's ONGC thrashed a jaded Western 8-1, after taking a commanding 6-1 lead midway through the 70-minute Pool A encounter.

In the third game of the day in Pool B, former champions Indian Oil trounced Northern Railway, Delhi, 6-1 after leading 1-0 at half-time. Gurpreet scored the first three goals for his team, two of them in the first half, for BPCL, through good penalty corner conversions.

The winners' other goal scorers, all from the field, were Tushar Khandekar, Hari Prasad and Ravi Pal between the 64th and 68th minutes. In between, Vikram Singh found the target for UBI to reduce the margin of defeat.

Earlier, Macheiah's ONGC teammates Mandeep Antil, Amit Malik, Diwakar Ram, Sumit Kumar and K H Jayanta chipped in with a goal each to complete the rout of Western who scored a consolation goal through Jaykaran, late in the first half.

Indian Oil, who came into the tournament after winning the MCC Murugappa tournament in Chennai, led by a slender 1-0 margin in the first half but produced a strong second half display to pump in five goals and run away with the match against Northern Railway.

Sunil Yadav and Pradhan Somanna, both scored two goals each, while Olympians Prabhjot Singh and Deepak Thakur, the skipper of the side, netted a goal each to complete the tally of goals. Northern Railway, who were a disjointed lot, managed to reduce the margin through Shamsher's late goal.

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