OBA retain top position

PUNE, Dec 23: Old Boy's Association (OBA) registered their third successive win as they defeated Rural Police with a comprehensive 7-2 ma...

PUNE, Dec 23: Old Boy’s Association (OBA) registered their third successive win as they defeated Rural Police with a comprehensive 7-2 margin in their Pool `A’ match of the MHA senior hockey league at the PCMC Poligras stadium here today. OBA thus retain the top position with nine points in the league.

Today, once again Rural Police went home with their bag of goals empty while OBA put their experience to good use. The latter had a good understanding between their players, with the team scoring four goals in the first half. They attacked the rival defence both the sides with Shrihari Bhosale and Aziz Irani taking charge of the right while Anthony D’Mello and Shakti Thakur were the left-side aggressors.

Three minutes into the game, right-in Aziz Irani put OBA into the lead when he neatly converted the penalty corner and three minutes later right-out Shrihari Bhosale made it 2-0 as he sounded the board from the top of the circle.

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The Rural Police defence, with Ismail Shaikh and Gurmeet Singh, failed to hold the OBA’s young forwards who were raiding regularly to increase their goal scoring rate. In the 14th minute it was centre-forward Jitendra Chande who received a fine pass from Bhupinder Singh and scooped the ball into the nets to score the third goal. Left-out Anthony D’Mello added one more goal to his account through a perfect deflection just a minute before the half time whistle.

Leading with 4-0 in the first half the OBA defence showed signs of over-confidence for which they had to pay when left-half Dongesh Parmesh dribbled past defenders S Bhupinder and Ranjeet Ranade and tapped the ball into the nets.

The Rural Police team’s joys came to an end when Shakti Thakur, Shrihari and Umesh Pulgam all replied to the cops efforts with solo effort.

Rural Police played with all their past experience as centre-forward Ranvir Singh Bhatti reduced one more goal.

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Earlier, Champion Sports Club just managed to win against PCMC XI by a solitary goal. In the neck-to neck battle both the teams failed to score in the first half. In the regular play PCMC XI received six penalty corners but failed to convert, while Champions converted their first penalty corner through centre-half Vivek Kale who scored the only goal for his team.

Champions gained five points with two draws and one win. PCMC XI has seven points with two wins and one draw.

Results
Seniors OBA: 7 (Shrihari Bhosale 2, Aziz Irani, Umesh Pulgam, Jitendra Chande, Shatki Thakur and Anthony D’Mello 1 each) bt Rural Police: 2 (Dongesh Parmesh and Ranvir Singh Bhatti 1 each).
Juniors Champions Sports Club 1 (Vivek Kale) bt PCMC XI:0.