New Delhi: It rained goals on the last day of the league round matchup between Delhi Wizards and Sher-e-Punjab at the World Series Hockey played at the Dhyanchand National Hockey Stadium on Friday with the home side eventually emerging as the winner. Delhi who reigned supreme on a day when goals were scored almost at will had again to resort to ace Pakistani striker Shakeel Abbasi to defeat the visiting Punjab side 7-5.
Abbasi, who has been shouldering the responsibility of Delhi’s attack throughout the tournament, did deliver once again and with semi-finals hopes already over them, he aptly helped his side in fulfilling the mission of signing out of the tournament on a high note. Delhi could have done some more damage had they not failed to capitalize on the penalty corner galore. They ended their inaugural WSH campaign with 19 points out of 14 matches to be placed sixth on the points table.
Both the teams started off on an attacking note, but it was Punjab who drew the first blood of the match when Gagandeep Singh found the post off a Karamjit Singh's cross from the left. The goal made everyone speculate Delhi might have one more off day at work, but a Victo Singh’s powerful shot from the top of the circle made it clear that the hosts meant serious business.
Victo’s goal was followed by Vivek Gupta who scored in a quite similar way to give Delhi a crucial lead before the half time. However two minutes later, Prabhjot Singh came to Punjab’s aid and restored the parity with a reverse hit. The teams went into the breather with the score locked at 2-2.
After the change of ends, Delhi were right on the offence from the word go and Abbasi scored two back to back goals to put the match well beyond Punjab’s reach. He first deflected one in the 38th minute off and then powered one past in the 43rd minute of the match.
Karamjit was able to reduce the gap when he scored one in the 53rd minute, but it could not kill Delhi’s momentum and they got two more goals in a span of three minutes through Upendra Pillay (54th) and Rajpal Singh (57th). Abbasi it looked like had saved his best for the last and after tormenting Punjab for throughout the course of the match found his third goal in the 61st minute after he converted a short corner. The goal virtually knocked Punjab out of the match and was alos incidentally the 300th goal of the tournament.
During the fag end of the match Prabhjot Singh (67th, 68th) scored two goals to incite some last minute drama into this match filled with drama but that was not enough to change the outcome of the match.
By Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News
