Indian Hockey Federation Juniors and Air India moved into the quarter-finals of the 81st All India MCC-Murugappa Hockey tournament in Chennai on Friday.
In their Group C match, IHF beat ONGC by a lone goal, scored by Vivek Gupta five minutes before the final whistle, while in Group A, Bhopal XI scored a 4-2 win over Madras Engineering Group (MEG), Bangalore.
Bhopal, who sufferred a setback, losing to Tamil Nadu 1-3 in a Group A encounter earlier, put up a spirited show today with their forwards responding well to the medios, while MEG looked a disjointed lot.
Today's win kept alive Bhopal's chances of progressing to the next grade, as MEG has to beat Tamil Nadu by a big margin to upset them.
ONGC, having lost both their matches in Group C, are out of the reckoning, leaving the field for Air India and IHF to decide the group winners.
Bhopal went in to a 2-0 lead through Aftab Uddin (4th min) and Asad Kamal (44th) but MEG applied relentless pressure to equalise in the 45th and 50th minutes. C B Devadass and Bicksal Bhengra were the scorers.
The young Bhopal side, which performed excellently in the Gold Cup in Mumbai recently, enjoyed territorial advantage in the last ten minutes of the game.
Even the medios, Amjad Khan, Athar Khan and Ousaf Ur Rahman played upfront and they scored in the 65th minute, when Athar Khan showed good opportunism to bang home following a melee. Then, seasoned Altaf ur Rahman made it 4-2 in the very next minute.
