New Delhi: IOC beat Indian Railways by 3-2 in the 27th Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey Tournament being played at Shivaji Stadium in New Delhi, on Wednesday.

Dipanshu Bhargava gave IOC the 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute through a field goal. Pradeep Singh scored the first goal for Railways just two minutes later (25th minute) to bring the equaliser. Going into the second half, both the teams were tied at 1-1.

IOC had different plans coming after the breather and played some attacking hockey to earn three penalty corners early into the second half, but in vain as they failed to convert their chances. Indian Railways changed its strategy and too went into the attacking mode and made several attempts one after the other but could not convert it in a goal till Poonacha scored a goal in 55th minute by a speedy shot to give railways a 2-1 lead. But the Railwaymen could not rejoice for longer as two consecutive goals by IOC in the 60th minute by Roshan Minz and in 64th minute by Deepak Thakur swung the match into IOC’s favour.

The match ended in IOC winning the match against Indian Railways by 3-2.

Deepak Thakur of IOC was adjudged as the best player of the match and a trophy for the same was presented to him by Anil Shastri, Former MP and son of late PM Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Talking about the game after the match, Indian Railways coach Prabhakher Singh said, “Our side is a young side and this team has practised only for a week together. We have to work on our team as in the match it conceded chances penalty corners. One of our better players Manpreet Singh could not play the match due to Typhoid fever and that had a lot of impact on this match. The result would have been different if he would have played this match.”

In the other match played today, Air India crushed ONGC by 5-1. Osaf-Ur-Rehman of Air India was adjudged man-of-the-match.