Mumbai, Punjab enter semifinals of National Hockey tourney

Mumbai thrashed Chhattisgarh 9-2, while Punjab blanked Tamil Nadu 7-0.
Also through to the last four stage are Karnataka and Rajasthan. While the former prevailed over Chandigarh 2-1, the latter staged a magnificent recovery to outplay Bhopal 4-3.

In the semifinals, Mumbai will face Rajasthan and Karnataka will lock horns with Punjab.
Mumbai showed excellent team work while overpowering Chhattisgarh, even though they made a hash of eleven penalty corners awarded to them.

The hosts could convert just two, the first which gave them the lead in the 8th minute through captain Roshan Keisham.

Mumbai increased the lead mid-way through the first half when Jarryd Nunes found the net.

Thereafter, they went on a scoring spree through Anup Walmiki, Aditya Shirke, Ganendrajit Ranjit and Nikhil Pujari in the last ten minutes to take a massive 6-0 lead at the break.

Shane Fletcher found the target with his stiff penalty corner drive to make it 7-0 for Mumbai.

After Rajat Sharma scored the hosts' eighth goal, Chhattisgarh reduced the margin through Raja Khan and Sumit Patle before Moses Pullanthara rounded off the tally for the hosts in the last minute.Punjab's trio of Harsahib Singh (2), Sukhdev Singh (3) and Davinder Kumar did all the damage against Tamil Nadu.

Gurpreet Singh (Sr) rounded off the tally for Punjab in the 69th minute after the winners led 5-0 at half time.Bhopal were leading 3-1 till the 51st minute against Rajasthan before complacency crept in, which finally led to their downfall.

Results:
Rajasthan (Sanjay Khan, Manohar Singh, Mahendra Khokhar, Charitra Singh Bishnoi) beat Bhopal (Shahnawaz Khan 3).
Punjab (Sukhdev Singh 3, Harsahib Singh 2, Davinder Kumar, Gurpreet Singh Sr) beat Tamilnadu.
Karnataka (Antony J Rakesh, Somanna P A) beat Chandigarh (Gurjant Singh)
Mumbai (Roshan Keisham, Jarryd Nunes, Anup Walmiki, Aditya Shirke, Ganendrajit Ranjit, Nikhil Pujari, Rajat Sharma, Moses Pullanthara) beat Chattisgarh (Raja Khan, Sumit Patle).