Local outfit Central Railway paid dearly for poor finishing as they were held to a 2-2 draw by a determined Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala in a crucial Pool 'A' league match of the 12th PMC Bank-Guru Tegh Bahadur All India Gold Cup Hockey Championship today.
Affan Yusuf (19th minute) and Yuvraj Walmiki (50th) scored the goals for Central while RCF got their goals through Gagandeep Singh (30th) and Deepak Sharma (64th).
Central finished their engagements with 7 points from 2 wins, a draw and a loss against Air India, while RCF also tally 7 points but have a game in hand against Air India, who are placed atop the pool with 9 points, on Tuesday.
A draw would suffice for RCF to go through the semi-finals. Even if RCF lose the concluding game to Air India, but not by a big margin they could still qualify for the last four round as they have a better goal-difference of +10 as compared to Central's goal-difference of +7.
Earlier in the morning, defending champions Air India, Delhi maintained their fine winning run of form as they got the better of a fighting Food Corporation of India, Delhi by 7-5 margin in an interesting Pool A league match.
This was the third successive win for Air India, who are in pole position in the pool with 9 points and are through to the semi-finals. They have a game in hand against RCF.
In a Pool B encounter, Comptroller and Auditor General, Delhi scored a hard-fought 2-1 win against Union Bank of India.
Results: Pool A: Central Railway 2 (Affan Yusuf 19th, Yuvraj Walmiki 50th) drew with RCF 2 (Gagandeep Singh 30th, Deepak Sharma 64th).
Air India 7 (Arjun Halappa 7th, Shivendra Singh 8, 18th, 46, VS Vinaya 49, Janma Majhi 60th, Mayur Patil 68th) beat FCI 5 (Imran Khan 6th, Vikram Yadav 44th, Govind Rawat 52nd, 59th, Kunal Jagdale 67th).
Pool B: CAG 2 (SS Bundela 6th, Navneet Swarnkar 12th) beat Union Bank of India 1 (Vinit Shetty).
