Bangalore, May 23: Runners-up Bombay warded off a stiff challenge from a fighting Central Reserve Police Force to win by an odd goal in three and virtually booked their berth in the quarterfinals in the Punjab and Sind Bank 58th Senior National Hockey Championship at the Sports Authority of India South Centre here on Friday. Bombay are expected to have it easy against lowly Uttar Pradesh in their last league match on Sunday.

In other matches, Air-India and Punjab, the fancied teams in the Group B, notched up their second successive victories against Orissa and Pondicherry respectively, to lead the table with six points each. Air-India will now meet Pondicherry and Punjab will take on Madhya Pradesh on Saturday before they face each other in the crucial encounter on Sunday.

CRPF dictated the pace early in the match and forced a penalty corner in the fourth minute but skipper Lugun Joseph's shot was cleared by defender Callistus D' Souza. But they failed to sustain the pressure and missed a golden opportunity to go on to the top wasting a penalty stroke, when S K Vashist scooped over the crosspiece. However, Bombay recovered from the initial hiccups and the midfield started to create moves and in the 19th minute fed by Varkey pass Dhanraj sped into the striking circle but his sizzling shot hit the post. But the speedy Olympian put his team ahead three minutes later. Receiving a pass from Ravi Nayakar, Amjad Khan dodged past a defender and entered the area and sent a square pass Dhanraj Pillay, who wasted no time in finding the target.

Bombay failed to increase the tally despite forcing two penalty corners and took the break with a 1-0 lead. But after resumption, CRPF looked a determined side and gave a tough fight to the former champions. Strikers Mukesh Kumar and J Topno combined well but their thrusts up front lacked cohesion. CRPF efforts got them six short corners but they wasted all of them with Bombay defender Callistus D'Souza proving a thorn in their flesh. Callistus effected neat and timely clearance, off the rebounds, on four occasions to prevent CRPF from scoring through penalty corners.

However, they found the equaliser through a field goal in the 44th minute when Karnaraj Singh shot home after receiving a pass from Suresh Topno. The goal lifted their spirits but they found the Bombay defence manned by Saurab Bishnoi and Callistus too strong to cross.

Bombay found the match-winner in the 57th minute through a field goal by Rajan Lakra who converted a cross from Enrico Fernandes, and hung on grimly to the narrow lead till the end to bag three points.

Fancied Air-India, too, struggled to beat a hard-working Orissa. Though they shot into the lead in the 12th minute with a penalty corner conversion by Surinder Singh, Orissa scored the equaliser when Lalit Ekka converted a stroke. The stroke was awarded when Ekka's shot from a short corner hit defender Anil Aldrin.

But Air-India turned the tide scoring in quick succession minutes before the break through Rajesh Chouhan and Alex D'Souza. Devinder Kumar increased the tally in the dying minutes.

In another group B match Punjab conceded a goal against minnows Pondicherry. The scorers for Punjab were Baljeet Bhullar (three), Baljit Dhillon, Daljit Singh (two each) and Manpreet Singh, Jagdev Singh, Surjeet Singh, Sarabjit Singh and Sukhbinder Singh Jr while S Palani scored for the losers.

IA down Bihar, enter quarters

It needed 24 minutes for Indian Airlines to take off. Even after Shakeel Ahmed put the defending champions on par, the flight of the Airlines team into the quarterfinals was not as smooth as expected. It was more due to individual brilliance than collective effort that the side achieved the 4-2 win over Bihar, to have won all matches in pool A and have nine points.

In other matches, Services pulverised Himachal Pradesh 17-0 in pool F and Bhopal drubbed Kerala 13-0 in pool A.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.