Punjab hold MPCL to draw as WAPDA, Police thrash rivals

KARACHI: Punjab held MPCL to a 2-2 draw in their match of Air Marshal Nur Khan National Hockey Championship here at the Abdul Sattar Edhi Stadium on Friday.

The match brought the on-going national championship to life as both teams showed great skills in defending as well as in making circle penetrations. Both teams displayed a balanced game.

MPCL captain Tazeem Hassan fired the ball into the net through a penalty corner in the 11th minute. But Punjab played out of their skins and tried to break the opposition’s tight defence as Ashar Tariq struck a beautifully crafted field goal to make it 1-1 at half-time.

MPCL’s Ali scored the second goal in the 43rd minute through an amazing drag-flicker. Punjab exploited the opposition’s defence, scoring a goal in the 59th minute scored through Waqas.

In the 60th minute Punjab got PCs but were unable to convert them due to great stick work by MPCL’s defenders and the goalkeeper.

In other matches, PIA thumped Sindh, Railways edged Balochistan, Gilgit were trounced by Police, and FATA were outplayed by WAPDA.

In the first match of the day, PIA defeated a weak Sindh team by 7-2. Ihsan Ullah and Hammad Anjum were the stand out performers, scoring three goals each. Ihsan opened the account for PIA by scoring a goal in the 6th minute through a penalty corner. The first quarter ended at 1-0.

In the second half, PIA’s forwards and midfielders exploited Sindh’s weak defence and scored four goals with Hammad scoring three well-crafted field goals.

Sindh scored one goal each in the third and the fourth quarters.

In the second match, Balochistan despite being a weak region showed great skills as their attackers dodged a tight Railways defence, scoring four goals. But Railways won the match by scoring six goals. Awais ur Rehman achieved a hat-trick, all three being field goals. Railways opened their scoring in the second minute of the match. They scored three goals in the second quarter and two in the last one.

Police thumped Gilgit 20-2. Ali Muhammad scored a double hat trick, tearing apart Gilgit’s defence. Rashid Hussain scored both the goals for Gilgit, one in the second quarter and the other in the third.

WAPDA scored 19 goals without conceding a single goal in their match against FATA. WAPDA scored the opening goal in the second minute when Toseeq Arshad fired the ball into the net. Two hat tricks were witnessed as Sami Ullah scored five goals. M Irfan netted three. FATA failed to get past the tightly-marked defence line of WAPDA.