Air India, PSB record big wins

Air India and Punjab and Sind Bank began their campaign in the Nehru hockey tournament in style on Friday.

While PSB pumped in 10 goals against Youngster Club, Bareilly, winning 10-1 in Pool I, Air India outplayed Corps of Signals 5-1, with Kishore Kumar scoring a hat-trick in the pool II encounter.

In the days' other matches, Combined Universities dropped two valuable points in Pool III as they drew 1-1 with Army XI and Indian Navy forced a 3-3 result with Bharat Petroleum.

Against Younsters, PSB scored four goals in the first 15 minutes and were ahead 5-0 at the break. Baljit Singh Chandi not only opened the account for PSB in the 8th minute but also slammed his third goal in the 69th minute to complete the rout. In between he scored his second goal in the 61st minute.

Sanjeev Kumar Singh, Parminder Singh and Prabhdeep Singh scored a brace each for PSB, while Devender Kaur scored the lone goal for the Bareilly side in the 55th minute.

In the match with Corps of Signals, Air India led by a solitary goal at the break through a penalty-corner conversion by Cornelius D'Costa. But the second half saw a changed Air India as they scored four more goals. Kishore Kumar struck thrice in ten minutes (43rd, 44th and 53rd minutes) to notch the tournament's first hat-trick while Edward Aranha converted another penalty-corner in the 38th minute to make it 5-0.

For Signals, Avtar Singh scored the consolation goal, converting a penalty-corner in the 55th minute.