CHENNAI, July 26: Air-India, the high-flying team of the country, came up with a workmanlike show to put out Punjab & Sind Bank 2-1 to open their account in style in the MCC-Murugappa All-India hockey tournament at the MRC stadium on Saturday.

Later, IHF Juniors XI, a bunch of future hopefuls, did not do any damage to their confidence rallying strongly to hold Karnataka XI 2-2.

Air-India, for all their domination, had to settle for a narrow win against an opposition content in making the odd sporadic moves.

A-I earned a penalty-stroke early on when P&SB goalkeeper Alloysius Edwards was ruled to have obstructed Devinder Kumar. But Edwards did well to save the effort of Surinder Kundu.

P&SB struck against the run of play, Harpreet Singh finding the mark from a Parminder Singh cross and doing well to hang on to that 22nd minute lead till the breather.

AI were not be denied for long, Darryl D'Souza banging in the equaliser from their seventh penalty corner, after change of ends. AI's all out efforts fetched them the winner, two minutes from time. Kishore Kumar was spot on to make the most of a tearing Aranha cross.

Karnataka, by crowding out the defence and playing three medios for most part, had the better of the say as far as the goal-bound moves were concerned. But midway through the second session, a stroke of ill-luck came their way, when Shanmugham's leg came in the way of a Tirkey penalty-corner hit. Rajeev Mishra converted the penalty-stroke with a high scoop. The rejuvenated Juniors fired in the equaliser three minutes from time, Rajesh Chouhan slotting in a penalty-corner after a little bit of jig play between Rawat and Senthil.

There was a settled look to the Karnataka bunch, the felicity with which they organised the moves being of a high order.

The energetic runs of Amar Aiyamma and Kamal Horo went well with the promptings of medio Samson Fernandez aided by a tight defence. Goalkeeper Bopanna had a good day and he could hardly be faulted on the two occasions he was beaten.

The experience of Olympians Tirkey and Baljit Singh Saini came in handy for them to put the spoke to the cascade of moves orchestrated by the Karnataka bunch. Ananda Velu, Samson and Lakshman Rao all took turns to test the overworked custodian Teja Singh. In between, the youngster negotiated a scorching penalty-corner hit from Ronald Kiran, the pads coming in handy to take the sting.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.