There were several nervous moments for Bangalore Hi-Fliers. They staged two good comebacks before overcoming defending champions Orissa Steelers 5-4 via tie-breaker in the semifinals of the Premier Hockey League here on Saturday. Both teams were tied 2-2 after regulation time.
Hi-Fliers' opponents in the best-of-three finals will be Chandigarh Dynamos, who defeated Hyderabad Sultans 5-3, also via tie-breaker at the Sector 42 stadium. The teams were levelled 1-1 after regulation time.
Though Hi-Fliers won, the game was far from what was expected of them or what they are really capable of. They are a thinking team but it did not seem like that on Saturday. With the likes of Tushar Khandekar, SV Sunil and You Hyo-sik in the forwardline, one would have expected punchy forays into the Steelers' circle. That was not so. Former India internationals Arjun Halappa and GM Hariprasad were the ones who provided some of the useful moves from the midfield.
Steelers were the more active of the two teams at the start and went for all-out attacks right from the start. Thanks to their aggressiveness as they were able to get two quick goals, both from Sunil Ekka.
The first goal was a 11th minute penalty corner conversion. Ekka dived ahead to tap the ball in after Hi-Fliers' goalkeeper Bharat Chetri had stopped the ball. Ekka's second goal came five minutes later with a stunning piece of work in which he dodged  couple of defenders and unleashed a stinging reverse hit that beat Chetri.
The Orissa team kept up their attacks but the Bangalore team's defence did a good job in keeping the opponents at bay. In their team, it was their attacking Pakistani midfielder Shakeel Abbasi who moved up swiftly and gave the rivals some tense moments. However, Steelers did not come up with too many attacks in the second and third quarters.
Hi-Fliers' penalty corner specialist Len Aiyappa came good twice. Aiyappa’s low flick sounded the boards in the 23rd minute to reduce the margin to 2-1. His second goal was a clean and high one in the 63rd minute. Hi-Fliers earned two penalty corners in the second half of silver goal time but they were frittered away.
With the silver goal time not yielding a result, the encounter was forced into the tie-breaker. Prabodh Tirkey and Roshan Minz scored off the first two strokes and put Steelers ahead but Damandeep Singh, Kim Chul and William Xalxo could not, thanks to Chetri's goalkeeping. For Hi-Fliers, Khandekar, Sebastian Westerhout  missed the first two strokes but Arjun Halappa, Vikram Kanth and Sandeep Michael were on target to see their team home. Chetri picked up the man of the match award.
Dynamos win
The first semifinal match between Dynamos and Sultans was not very exciting either. The young Sultans team was a determined unit and attacked with vigour throughout. A little more organisation would perhaps have given them a shot at the title.
Diwakar Ram put Sultans ahead in the third minute of silver goal time with a penalty corner conversion. Dynamos replied with a goal two minutes later when Deepak Thakur deflected a rising ball following a free hit from Sandeep Singh.
In the tie-breaker, Rajpal Singh, Thakur, Ravi Pal Singh and Gaurav Tokhi scored, while Prabhjot Singh missed. For Sultans, Pramod Kumar and Didar Singh shot in, while Sardara and Bikas Toppo missed out.