Pillay guides Indian Airlines
to victory

A fine performance by ace forward Dhanraj Pillay enabled Indian Airlines score a 2-0 victory over Central Industrial Security Force in the 13th Shastri hockey tournament in Delhi on Saturday.

The result saw Indian Airlines finish on top of Pool 'A' and make it to the semi-finals along with CISF, who finished behind them in the pool.

In another match, CRPF needed an outright victory over ONGC to make it to the last four from Pool 'B', but were held to a 4-4 draw. Both teams were eliminated from the competition.

The Indian Airlines-CISF was a keen affair with both the teams failed to score in the first session. However, immediately after the breather, Pillay, who was a thorn in the CISF defence, capitalised on a pass from Arjun Halappa and put his side into the lead.

Indian Airlines dominated the procedings thereafter but muffed several easy chances including a penalty- stroke.

Halappa went on to score the second goal for Airlines, capitalising on a defensive lapse in the 51st minute.

Five minutes before the final whistle, Altaf-ur-Rehman failed to convert the 'stroke' for Airlines.

In the CRPF-ONGC match, Rajdeep Singh (24th), Ravi (39th), Vivek Gupta (51st) and Gurpreet Singh (62nd) scored the goals for ONGC while V Hemram (37th), Tanveer Jamal (44th), Balkar Singh (58th) and Jasved Singh (68th) accounted for CRPF's goals.