Murugappa Gold Cup: Indian Railways defends title, outplays IOC 5-3

Railways, the defending champion, has been dominant throughout the tournament and in the summit clash, it was more so, as it didn’t allow IOC to settle down.

Indian Railways won the 95th All Indian MCC-Murugappa Gold Cup hockey tournament. | Photo Credit: VEDHAN M

A decent turn-out of spectators gave a rich round of applause to the Indian Railways team when it did a lap of honour after a fighting 5-3 victory over Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in the final of the 95th MCC-Murugappa Gold All-India hockey tournament here on Sunday.

Railways, the defending champion, has been dominant throughout the tournament and in the summit clash, it was more so, as it didn’t allow IOC--comprising quite a few former Olympians and Internationals--to settle down.

READ | Murugappa Gold Cup: Lesser-known Joginder, with goals aplenty to his name, hopes to make it to National camp

If at all, the Railways performed worse in penalty corner conversion against IOC. It had nine—eight came in the first quarter alone--and could convert only one.

IOC was outplayed from beginning to end. The moment Railways took a 4-2 lead in the third quarter, it was quite evident that IOC had a mountain to climb. IOC did attack well on occasions but failed miserably in the final third. Moreover, the former champion, too, had eight penalty corners and converted just one.

“I will put down the victory to our fitness levels. Though IOC had many stars, our fitness levels were better than theirs. I would also like to pick youngster Simranjot Singh for not just his ability to score but also his receiving skills. Of course, it has been a 100 per cent team effort,” said Railways head coach Sunil Kumar Singh.

The results (final):

Indian Railways 5 (Gursahibjit Singh 7, Simranjot Singh 9, Yuvraj Walmiki 18 & 58, Mukul Sharma 35) bt IOC 3 (Talwinder Singh 23, Gujinder Singh 29, Rajbir Singh 58).