Chhattisgarh rallied from two-goal deficit to beat Kerala 3-2 in a thrilling match of the 4th Hockey India Senior Men National Championship here today.
Kerala started the match with great speed and they took the lead in the 18th minute when Sarin scored through a field goal. They doubled the lead just a minute before the end of first half with Jithu Sasi scoring another field goal.
Chhattisgarh regrouped themselves in the second half and Shakeel Ahmed managed to keep his cool and scored through a penalty corner in the 54th minute.
Eight minutes later, Chhattisgarh restored parity through a field goal by Mohd Erfan Khan. The team did not stop there and scored the match-winner in the 69th minute through Upendra Pillay.
In another match, Puducherry mauled Tripura 11-1. While Tripura's Arif Hussain started the goal scoring in the ninth minute, it was Puducherry who then rained with goals.
A Tamilarasan scored a hat-trick with all his goals coming in the second half. M Harikrishna, V Karthikeyan and N Kamalakannan scoring two goals each.
In the third match of the day, Odisha thrashed Mizoram 6-0.
