WSH: Chandigarh's 4-3 win over Mumbai assures semifinal berth

Chandigarh: A last-minute goal by Robert Green helped local favourites Chandigarh Comets beat struggling Mumbai Marines 4-3 and assure themselves a semifinal berth in the World Series Hockey here today. Locked at 3-3 and with barely couple of minutes remaining for the final hooter, Comets led by Pakistani international Rehan Butt earned their sixth penalty corner. [caption id=“attachment_258932” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Chandigarh Comets celebrate after their first goal against Mumbai Marines. PTI”] [/caption] However, failing to convert it, luck still smiled on the Comets as the ball had not been cleared by the Marines defenders and Green made good use of the opportunity that came his way to seal the issue in his team’s favour. With Comets clearly dominating the initial proceedings, the match later saw the fortunes fluctuate and Marines coming from behind to put up a spirited fight. High on confidence, Comets took an early lead with Ramandeep Singh scoring in the 7th minute. Few minutes later, Gurjinder Singh made the scoreline read 2-0 by converting a penalty corner. In the second quarter, Amir Khan put his team on the top as his reverse hit beat the Mumbai goalkeeper. Pushed to the wall, Marines’ Banmali Xess scored the first goal for his team a few seconds from the half-time. Australia’s Troy Sutherland narrowed the lead in the 15th minute of the third quarter. Marines resorted to some aggressive hockey to build pressure on the home favourites. The visitors earned their fourth penalty corner in the opening minutes of the last quarter after having failed to convert earlier chances, but Sutherland squandered the opportunity. Ajmer Singh scored the equaliser for Marines through a penalty corner. With this win, Comets now have 25 points, the same as Sher-E-Punjab. In the other match,  hosts Chennai Cheetahs made an incredible comeback in the final quarter as they beat Delhi Wizards 6-4 to keep their hopes of making it to the semi-finals alive. Cheetahs now have 19 points from 13 matches and are on fourth spot. It was a fantastic game where Cheetahs trailing 1-3 came back to equalise and then pump in three more. Wizards’ Vikramjeet Singh did his reputation no harm as he struck thrice with identical drag-flick conversions. The first goal came in the 11th minute of the first quarter only to be equalised by Cheetahs within three minutes. It was case of defensive lapse on part of Wizards defenders as Veeraswamy Raja got enough space and time to execute a powerful angular shot that beat the opposition goalie. However the in the 10th minute of the second quarter(27th of the match), Vikramjeet was brilliant once again as he scored his 10th goal in the tournament. In the 33rd minute, Cheetahs nearly equalised when it looked that Gaurav Tokhi of the home team had guided a powerful hit into the Wizards goal but a referral showed that it had only touched India discard Rajpal Singh’s stick. Vikramjeet made it 11 strikes in the tourney when he converted another in the 37th minute and also completed his hat-trick in the process. However former Pakistan international Syed Imran Warsi — who is currently the highest scorer in the tournament then converted a couple of short corners to level the proceedings. The third quarter ended at 3-3 with Warsi leading the tournament scorer chart with 18 goals. PTI