Riding on a hat-trick by experienced striker Mukesh Kumar, fancied Indian Airlines routed Oil and Natural Gas Corporation 11-2 to enter the semi finals of the Lal Bahadur Shastri hockey tournament at New Delhi on Sunday.
Indian Airlines, which boast of a team full of internationals, dominated the entire 70 minutes of play and led their opponents 6-0 at half time.
Mukesh Kumar (10th, 14th, 18th), Dilip Tirkey (25th, 49th), Girish Pimpale (42nd, 66th), Vikram Pillay (58th, 61st), Arjun Halappa (1st) and Sameer Dad (23rd) sounded the board for the winners while Anurag Raghuvanshi (53rd) and Bharti (57th) scored the consolation goals for ONGC.
In another Group 'A' match, Bharat Petroleum defeated Dinamo Kazan hockey club of Russia 4-3 in a keenly contested encounter to take the second semifinal spot from the group.
BPCL looked like running away with the tie when it took a 3-0 lead by the 24th minute, thanks to goals by B Pundlik (15th), Tushar Khandekar (19th) and Amar Aiyamma (24th).
But the Russian side fought back in style as Starkov Dimitry found the net in the 26th minute and Arutynian Eduard converted a penalty corner two minutes later to go into the break with just a goal behind.
In the second half both teams went for the kill with BPCL skipper Ajay Saroha giving his team a comfortable 4-2 lead in the 42nd minute through a penalty corner.
Eduard scored off a penalty stroke in the 48th minute to reduce the margin but the Russian team failed to avoid a defeat.
