Hockey Nationals: Odisha, Puducherry, Jharkhand, Maharashtra emerge victorious

The seventh day of the 14th Hockey India Senior Men National Championship, held at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Hockey Stadium in Chennai, featured victories by Odisha, Le Puducherry, Jharkhand, and Hockey Maharashtra in their respective pool matches.

In the first clash of the day, Odisha defeated Hockey Arunachal 9-0, in Pool E where Amandeep Lakra (5’, 25’), Ajay Kumar Ekka (15’, 50’), and Kerobin Lakra (47’, 53’) scored a brace each.

On the other hand, India international Nilam Sanjeep Xess (11’), Pratap Lakra (23’), and Sudeep Chirmako (35’) also scored one goal each for Odisha.

Le Puducherry hammered Rajasthan with a 13-2 victory with the exceptional performances from T. Arun Kumar (3’, 21’, 25’, 26’), Mahendran P (2’, 7’, 29’, 32’) and R Ranjith (8’, 37’, 42’, 50’), scoring four goals each.

There was also the goal contribution from their Captain, Veerathamizan V (55’). Meanwhile, Captain Virendra Singh (15’) and Keshav Pandey (47’) were the only scorers for Rajasthan.

In Pool G, Jharkhand defeated Gujarat with a massive scoreline of 18-2, with four goals from Atish Dodrai (9’, 11’, 49’, 60’) and the hattricks of Dilbar Barla (2’, 16’, 38’) and Captain Simon Badra (18’, 23’, 42’).

The other goals of Jharkhand came in with a brace of Daniyal Soy (37’, 45’) and a goal each from Junul Purti (17’), Sunil Xaxa (26’) Birsa Oreya (28’), Michael Topno (31’), Anurud Bhangra (34’) and Joseph Topno (59’).

For Gujarat, Meet Gajera (5’) and Neel Ajay Patel (25’) were the only two goal scorers in this match.

In another Pool G fixture, Maharashtra defeated Goans Hockey, 5-0 with all five goals scored in the first half of the match with Captain, Devinder Sunil Walmiki (2’) giving Maharashtra the early lead.

Pratap Shinde (17’), Aditya Lalage (21’), Aniket Gurav (23’), and Ajinkya Jadhav (26’) also added one goal each in the first half for Maharashtra.