New Delhi: Central Railways rallied to a thumping 5-2 victory by a virtue of a penalty shootout over the Karnataka XI and entered the Quarter finals of the 48th Nehru Senior Hockey Tournament played here at the Dhyanchand Stadium on Thursday.

Both the teams looked to be in good and started off well, but eventually Central Railways took control of the affairs and started to look more intimidating. The Railways go their first chance at the cherry in the fourth minute when they were awarded a penalty corner. They looked almost certain to score a score, but a great acrobatic save by Karnataka’s custodian Jagdeep Dayal denied them the glory. Central Railways got two more penalty corners in the next 15 minutes, but failed to capitalize on them too. Both the side made continuous efforts to get past each other’s citadel, but failed to do as the first half ended goalless.

After the change of ends, the Railway side looked more dominating and made continuous attempt to score a goal. At last there perseverance paid off as they got the first goal of the match in the 47th minute through Rajender Yadav. 10 minutes, Karnataka got the equalizer through Aiyappa off a penalty corner.

Karnataka soon found the equalizer in the 67th minute when Rathan Muthanna’s superb pass to Mudappa was well accepted by Mudappa and he put it sweetly past the Railways nets. With just three minutes left for the match, the match eventually ended in a draw.

The match entered the penalty shootout and it favored the Railways as they converted three out of five in contrary to their opponents who could not find the nets even for once during the penalty shootout. Victo Singh, Rajendar Yadav, Shashi Topno were the ones who converted it for the Central Railways to see them home.