Obaidullah Khan Heritage Hockey Cup commences in Bhopal

Bhopal, 15 September 2016: The first day of the Obaidullah Khan Heritage Hockey Cup got off to a goal-filled start at the Aishbagh Hockey Stadium in Bhopal yesterday. After a dazzling opening ceremony that had Madhya Pradesh Hon’ble Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in attendance, the teams took to the field for the opening encounters.

The opening match saw a huge upset as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation beat runners up of the Murugappa Gold Cup Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. 4-2. In a low scoring first half, ONGC opened the scoring in the 9th minute via Gurjinder Singh and held on strong to their lead. Indian Oil however hit back three minutes after the break, VR Raghunath scoring the equaliser off a PC in the 38th minute. From there on though ONGC grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck as goals from Diwakar Ram (40’, 59’) and Gurwinder Singh (55’) gave them a three-goal lead. Indian Oil cut that down with another PC conversion via Victo Singh in the 67th minute, but in the end it proved to be too little too late, as ONGC ran out winners.

In the second game, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. beat the Associaton of Indian Universities 5-2. Despite the scoreline, it took till the second half for the first goal of the game; SV Sunil scoring in the 37th minute to give BPCL the lead. Five minutes later they had doubled it via Tushar Khandker. AIU hit back with a goal almost from the restart via KP Somiah and then scored the equaliser in the 54th minute via Navjot Singh. BPCL took the lead again in the 57th minute via a Gurpreet Singh PC conversion before goals from Hari Prasad (59’) and Lalit Kumar Upadhyay (70’) put away AIU for good and gave BPCL their first victory of the tournament.