Army XI, Western Rlys in semis

Army XI, Bangalore, and holders Western Railway reached the semi-finals of the 44th Bombay Gold Cup Hockey Tournament in Mumbai on Sunday.

The armymen rode roughshod over Bombay Customs in their one-sided quarterfinal clash to carve out a 5-1 victory before the railmen got past Sikh Regiment Centre (Ramgarh) 2-1 after leading by two goals at half-time.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Namdhari XI, who both play in the Bangalore league, have already booked their spots in the last four to be played in a round robin format from tomorrow.

Army XI's hard-running, speedy style proved too much for the customs team.

Speedy frontliner S V Mahji scored a brace of field goals for the Army team, while the other goals were notched by Rajesh Lakra, a penalty corner drag-flick, S Kumar Ekka and S Suresh, both field efforts.

The lone goal for Bombay Customs, who trailed 1-2 at half-time, was scored by Ishoq off their lone penalty corner.

In the day's second match, Western Railway went 2-0 up before half-time through field goals by Hardeep Singh (3rd) and Jasdev Singh (32nd) before Sikh Regiment Centre reduced the margin seven minutes from the end through Satnam SinghJ r, who converted a penalty stroke.