CHENNAI, July 31: The guessing game continues. Four teams are still in contention at the end of the penultimate day of the group matches in the MCC-Murugappa Gold Cup Hockey Tournament at the MRC stadium on Thursday.

IHF Juniors, Punjab & Sind Bank and Tamil Nadu XI are perched at seven points each. Indian Airlines, who play P&SB in their last match on Friday, with four points have to win by an extraordinary margin to keep their slim hopes alive. TN XI and IHF Juniors meet in the final match of the group.

Tamil Nadu XI dumped Air-India 6-2 and Karnataka XI came from behind to snuff out the challenge of India Airlines 2-1 in two interesting contests of the day. Karnataka finished their engagements with seven points but with a poor goal average is out of the running.

Things rolled well for IA against an opposition which gave the impression of going through the motions initially. But suddenly the Karnataka bunch came alive motivated by a stroke of good luck and fired in the winner midway through the second half. As many as 10 penalty corners came Karnataka's way overall and a chunk of those in the hectic phase when they struck twice.

A combine between Guria and Kamal Horo resulted in a stroke when Harinder threw his stick in a desperate attempt to check that. Horo was on target. That 50th minute effort was consolidated a little later by a good piece of opportunism by Samson Fernandez, who timed his deflection to meet a Horo cross.

The lean trot of Mukesh Kumar continued to the utter discomfort of IA. So much so the mantle of attack fell on Brojen Singh, Md. Arif and Shakeel. But on a day when the Karnataka defence gave nothing away, IA could not find the passage to penetrate through. The one to impress in that arc was Ronald Kiran with the back-up provided by Rama Rao and Mahesh Kumar.

Altaf-ur-Rehman came up with his customary penalty corner conversion to put IA in front. Karnataka goalkeeper Bopanna was left stranded, beaten as much by the sting as by the angle. IA did well to keep that 26th minute lead in custody till the breather.

A-I routed: Air-India suffered their second straight defeat to bow out in a dismal fashion. The focus was clearly not there for a team which just could not get their act together. TN bunch helped themselves to some easy offerings.

Two field goals by Thirumalavalavan and Prabhakaran enabled TN XI rattle A-I before Anil Aldrin came good with a penalty corner conversion. Senthilkumar ensured the two-goal lead with a spot on penalty corner hit only to find Alex D' Souza pull one back from a melee.

Crossing over 3-2, TN banged in three more. A Ravikumar penalty corner effort early on was followed by field goals from Prabhakaran and Kirubakaran late in the match.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.