A Fernandes and Asif Jamal struck in the middle of and late in the second half to take the railwaymen past a semi-final that threatened to go into another stale-mate. Fernandes flicked in a corner kick from Shanta Kumar with his back to the goal. The ball bounced off I-T goalkeeper Pramod Shreedharan and went off Ramesh Thakkur's hands into the goal for the CR camp to let out a near-audible sign of relief in the 70th minute. Jamal capitalised on a misdirected effort from substitute Hameed Ansari 10 minutes later and scored nice and easypast a defender and the 'keeper.

Custodian Shreedharan saved I-T early blushes when he held fort twice, leaping to get his fingers onto Masood Ansari's left-footer in the 10th minute and later, in the 25th, flipping over Jamal's header. These two chances were only a few from the many opportunities that CR held, marking their domination in the game and indicating that they will be difficult opponents for Customs in the final on Friday.

CUSTOMS THROUGH: After Mohammed Jameel had put the Hyderabad team ahead in the 28th minute, Customs were rescued from elimination by Hyderabad XI's Manibhushan who brought down Kumar in the box. Raja Rajan converted the penalty but later undid the good work.

He was the first to miss his shot during the tie-breaker to send Hyderabad XI ahead (2-1). Hyderavad's Prabhu sent his shot wide to put the teams on one miss a piece (4-3). Mohammed Sajid's shot was anticipated correctly by Chennai goalkeeper Anil Kumar (5-5) and Chandrashekar scored the winner (6-5) forCustoms.

Others who converted are Chendur, EV Rajan, Rajan, Nityanandan for Chennai Customs and Manibhushan, Safi, Jameel, Umainandan for Hyderabad XI.