Mumbai: Led by veteran Prabhjot Singh, Sher-E-Punjab lifted the inaugural World Series Hockey title by beating Pune Strykers 5-2 in the final played here on Monday. The determined Shers showed that they are indeed the king on hockey field by conquering the coveted honour in inimitable style to deservingly pocket the highest-ever prize money in the history of hockey.
In a contest played at a breathtaking pace, the opportunistic Strykers stunned the Shers with an early goal to electrify the huge crowd, but Shers took control of the game without any delay to ascertain their authority, striking spectacular goals at regular intervals.
Captain Prabhjot Singh again proved his class as he again came up with a brace of solo goals. Besides Prabhjot Singh, VS Vinaya and young gun Harpreet Singh struck penalty corners while the other goal came through the tireless Deepak Thakur.
Speedy Roshan Minz sprinted fast, fed Bikash Toppo on the right, who flicked high from near baseline to an almost zero angle to catch custodian Sukhjit Singh napping to fetch the first goal.
Moments later, the reliable VS Vinaya replied through the first penalty corner, pushing the back pass sent to him by Harpal Singh, diagonally to the right corner, to even the score. Both team pressed hard to go up, but it was left to the genius of Deepak Thakur to force a goal, his 12th in the league. Mathew Hotchkis supplied him a slow ball in a counter attack. Trapping it on the top edge of the circle Thakur drew both the markers to his back with deceptive body dodge before whacking a lightening fore-hander that blistered past goalie Gurpreet Singh on his right.
Earlier, Gurpreet Singh stood like rock of Gibraltar in blunting three penalty corners from the Shers. The third one where he stretched his legs in time to nib three potential ground shots, was superb. When Thakur struck the 2-1 lead at half time, this goalie was left stranded without any cover from his mates.
The ruthless Shers availed a peculiar setting to go up in the third quarter. Amit Gowda disturbed Thakur on the left backline, and got injured. The speedy Sher forward, meanwhile, took the long corner, letting Prabhjot Singh to unleash a bullet of a reverse hander to send the ball home, even as Gowda was still lying on one side writhing in pain.
Prabhjot stole the limelight again with a solo that caught both the goalie and a chasing Gurpreet napping. This was perhaps the best goal of the WSH league.
The tale of Bikash Toppo told the trails and tribulations of the Strykers. His goal was disallowed twice, first in the second quarter due to infringement and two quarter later he himself was carried before punching the goal. Simranjit Singh Randhawa posted a last-minute goal to bring some respect to the scoreline, but today the Shers were unquestionably the Kings of WSH.
Individual Awards for the Bridgestone WSH are as follows
1. Bridgestone WSH Rockstar (INR 1 crore) : Gurjinder Singh from Chandigarh Comets
2. Bridgestone WSH Indian Superstar (INR 50 lacs): Roshan Minz of Pune Strykers
3. Bridgestone WSH Golden Stick (INR 25 lacs): shared between Syed Imran Warsi from Chennai Cheetahs and Gurjinder Singh from Chandigarh Comets (19 goals apiece)
4. Bridgestone WSH Game Changer (INR 25 lacs): Shakeel Abbasi of Delhi Wizards
5. Bridgestone WSH Rookie of the Year (INR 10 lacs): Lalit Upadhyay of Bhopal Badshahs
6. Bridgestone WSH Best Coach (Balkrishna Award): Rajinder Singh of Sher-e-Punjab
