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Indian Airlines, IOC in Surjit hockey final January 04, 2006 21:04 IST Star-studded Indian Airlines will clash with Indian Oil in the final of the 22nd Surjit Hockey tournament in Jalandhar on Thursday. In Wednesday's semi-finals, Indian Oil edged out Punjab Police 3-2, while Indian Airlines beat Bharat Petroleum in sudden-death 7-6. In the women's section, Haryana won the title, beating Pepsu XI by a solitary goal in the final. The winners got richer by Rs 31,000 while the runners-up got Rs 21,000. Ritu Rani of Haryana was declared the best player of the tournament. The first semi-final between Punjab Police and Indian Oil was a fast-paced and evenly contested affair. Indian Oil dominated the first-half while the cops made s strong comeback in the second from three goals down. After wasting their first penalty-corner in the 17th minute, Indian Oil's star striker Prabhjot Singh opened the scoring following a pass from Inderjit Chadda from left flank (1-0). Deepak Thakur sounded the board off a pass from Deedar Singh in the 31st minute to make it 2-0 before Inderjit Chadda made the scoreline 3-0 in the 39th minute. Stung by the reverses, Punjab Police swung into action in the second session and Jugraj Singh scored twice from penalty-corners with excellent drag push in the 41st and 51st minutes (2-3) to lay the ground for a fightback. But their efforts to find the equaliser went in vain as Indian Oil held on to make their maiden entry into the final of the tournament. In the other semi-final, Indian Airlines went ahead in the 19th minute when Arjun Halappa scored a fine goal from a pass from Dhanraj Pillay (1-0). After wasting two penalty-corners, in 59th and 62nd minutes, Bharat Petroleum's struck in the last minute of the match when Len Aiyappa scored from a penalty-corner to take the game to the penalty shoot-out. After five strokes in the tie-breaker the teams were locked 4-4. In sudden-death, Bharat Petroleum's Prabhdeep failed to find the mark while and Sandeep Michael scored to take Indian Airlines to the final.
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