Oil and Natural Gas Commission got the better of formidable Indian Oil Corporation 4-3 (2-2) via the penalty shootout, in the final of the all-India public sector men’s hockey tournament in Amritsar on Sunday. Indian Oil skipper Deepak Thakur opened the scoring in the shootout, while ONGC’s Mandeep Singh made it 1-1. A miss from Vikramkanth (IOC) though handed over the advantage to ONGC, who scored successive goals via Ranjit Singh and Gurjant Singh. Indian Oil fought back, Vikash Sharma and Bharat Chhikara’s strikes putting them level at 3-3, as Pramod Kumar missed out for ONGC. Inderjit Chadha missed out on the decisive penalty, while Diwakar Ram made no such mistake for ONGC to hand them the title. Earlier, ONGC took the lead through Gurjant before Indian Oil’s Didar Singh equalised in the first half action. Penalty corner specialist Diwakar put ONGC ahead again in the second half, but a late Thakur strike forced the game into the tie-breaker. Roshan Minz (IOC) was named the man of the match, while ONGC skipper Tyron Pereira was awarded the player of the tournament award.
