Despite playing at only half throttle, Canara Bank still carried far too many guns for Indian Telephone Industries, scoring a crushing 6-1 victory in the Travancore Cup hockey tournament here on Saturday.
The lop-sided victory in a Phase II encounter saw the Bankmen top Group A, reduced to a two-team affair following the pull out of SAI 'B'. The Telephonesmen, despite the defeat, went through to the knockout as the second team from the group.
The way Canara Bank began, it looked like they would score a much bigger win. They did ease off after the first-minute strike, and a gritty Astha Kumar under the ITI bar denied them a couple of goals with fine saves.
The only time the winners looked a little shaky, if you can call it so, were during the quick counterattacks. Though they were few and far between, the Canara defence did look a little rusty. But by and large India goalkeeper Bharath Chetri was untroubled. The only time he was beaten was in the 12th minute. Off a quick counter, hardworking ITI playmaker Satish found Devaiah on the right. The latter sent in a stinging cross and Yadav Ramesh deflected into the Canara goal to restore parity.
A couple of minutes later, ITI skipper Somaya had a good chance to put his team ahead. But the striker was a trifle late after playing one-two with Devaiah. Ronald Kiran, who put Canara ahead with a strike in the opening miniute, had enough time to thwart ITI's attempt.
Canara hit back after that threat with twin strikes within the space of five minutes to put the issue more or less beyond ITI's reach. Ricky Ganapathy (18th) and John Verghese (23rd) being the scorers. Though the Telephonesmen did make the odd foray or two, they just didn't have the arsenal to make a match of it.
After change of ends, Canara Bank scored through Sunil Benjamin (47th), Appanna (49th) and Ronald Kiran (58th) to complete a good day in the office.
In another tie, Harpreet Singh's double hat-trick (32, 41, 45, 50, 51, 54th minutes) was the feature of Army Service Corps' (ASC) thumping 10-0 rout of Reserve Bank of India. Deepu (28, 58), R Bhengra (16) and Parthasarathy (12) were the other scorers.
Other result: SAI 'A': 16 (Nithin Thimmaiah 2, 14, 17, 25, 34, 45 minutes, Nanaiah 4, 19, 30, Rafeeq 15, Vineeth Michael 34, 37, 38, 42; Aiyappa 22, Harsha 44) bt Kaveri HC: 0.
