Defending champions Indian Oil, with a clutch of present and former India players in their ranks, rallied from a first-half deficit to put it across Army XI 5-2 to enter the semi finals of the 49th All India Bombay Gold Cup hockey tournament, here today.
Army XI stunned the Mumbai league winners by dominating play in the opening half in which they went into the lead too from a close range shot from Bachatar Singh in the 25th minute but then played second fiddle in the second half to lose the game that ended their semi final hopes too.
The oilmen, who swamped local qualifiers Maharashtra State Police 12-2 in their Pool A opener yesterday, soaked up the first half pressure to gradually take control of the match and emerge with honours against the fit army team.
The equaliser came through a penalty corner goal five minutes into the second half from Gurjinder Singh who later scored the team's fourth goal by converting a penalty stroke award in the 66th minute.
In between these two goals from the full back, ex-internationals Prabjot Singh and Roshan Minz scored field goals while current India player Dharamveer Singh rounded off the tally with 15 seconds left for the hooter just after Siraju had scored for the losers.
Indian Oil could have scored at least two more goals if not Prabjot and his long-time friend and former international Deepak Thakur fluffed straight-forward chances to score.
In an earlier Pool C match, local team Indian Navy recovered from 0-2 to draw 2-2 with ONGC and eliminate another local outfit Western Railway from the fray.
ONGC now have to beat Western by a two-goal margin to qualify for the semis as Navy have beaten the railwaymen 4-3 earlier in the tournament.
The goal scorers for ONGC, who led 2-0 at half time, were Gagan and Mandeep Singh while for Navy Parteek Singh and Mohammad Faheem Khan found the target.
In the last game of the day in Pool B, Bharat Petroleum defeated Punjab National Bank 2-0, with a goal in each half from ex-Indian player Tushar Khandkar and current international S V Sunil.
