Etawah: The fifth day of the Senior Men’s National Championship saw matches played out between teams from Pool C, Pool D and Pool E.
In the first match of Pool C, Chandigarh beat Chhattisgarh 7-0. Goals for Chandigarh were scored by Davinder Singh (6’), Harman Preet Singh (23’,27’), Lovedeep Singh (32’) and hat trick hero Markus Topno (52’, 55’, 57’).
The second game was an evenly matched goal fest as Rajasthan took on Telangana. Telangana opened the scoring in the 8th minute via a Raj Rahul goal, only to concede the equaliser within five minutes from a PC conversion by Amit Lohchab. The only goal of the second quarter was scored by Telangana as Raj Rahul scored another to give his team a 2-1 lead going into half time. Rajasthan came out of half time much stronger and scored two goals in the third quarter as Uttam Kumar (31’) and Lohchab (40’) converted two more PCs to give their side the lead. Telangana equalised in the 48th minute (Arvind) only to concede from the restart through a PC scored by Karmbir. With seven minutes to the hooter, Telangana’s Srinivas Peddiwar scored the equaliser to ensure both teams shared the points for the day.
In the first match of Pool D Hockey Himachal beat Kerala Hockey 3-0. Jagdev Singh opened the scoring for Himachal in the 20th minute, before Pardeep Kumar recorded a brace (46’, 56’) to give Himachal the victory.
Central Secretariat took on Hockey MP in the second game of the Pool. CSE took the lead in the 6th minute via Sivamani only to have it nullified in the 15th minute by a Lucky Rajak PC conversion. From there on though, CSE came into their own and put away five goals in the next twenty minutes without any reply to extend their lead to 6-1 at one stage of the match. Sunil Shah (19’, 21’), Siddharth Shanker (29’, 40’) and Gunasekar (43’, 53’) recorded braces for CSE in the 9-2 victory. Mayank James scored MP’s second goal in the 41st minute.
In the Pool E opener for the day, Delhi thumped Gujarat 15-1. Parveen Kumar scored six goals (20’, 26’, 29’, 34’, 35’, 60’) and Satender Kumar scored three (14’, 48’, 57’) in the rout. Gujarat’s lone goal was scored by Ruchit Patel in the 16th minute.
In the final match of the day, Sashastra Seema Bal beat Tripura Hockey 6-0. Goals for SSB were scored by Arif Ansari (3’, 40’), Santi A Kumar (6’), Mohd. Jainuddin (11’), Satyajit Brahma (21’) and Vikrant Chudary (55).
At the end of this round of matches the highest goal scorers of the Nationals are Satbir Singh, PNS Bank (11 goals), Gaganpreet Singh, PNS Bank (10 goals), Saroj Ekka, CRPF (7 goals) and Gunasekar, Central Secretariat (7 goals).