Chennai, Oct 7 (IANS) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) confirmed their progress to the semi-finals from Pool A when they defeated Indian Overseas Bank 2-0 in the 85th All-India MCC-Murugappa Gold Cup hockey tournament, here Wednesday.
It was BPCL’s third win in as many matches and they have nine points, the same as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). The two teams will play each other Thursday to decide the top two positions in the pool.

Meanwhile, Army XI, who overcame Mumbai XI 3-1 in the day’s last match, also advanced to the semi-finals stage with nine points while finishing second in Pool A behind Indian Oil Corporation (12 points).

BPCL’s victory was a foregone conclusion considering their firepower and organisation. Against IOB, the local league champions, it was virtually a one-way street with BPCL controlling the proceedings, but missing scoring opportunities.

IOB, who had lost two of their three previous matches and as such had nothing at stake, struggled to lift their game and spent much of the 70 minutes defending.

Ravi Pal Singh gave BPCL the lead with a fourth-minute strike and past the 53rd Pradheep Singh made it 2-0 with a penalty corner conversion. In between the two goals, BPCL created and muffed opportunities to add a few more to the tally, but the twin strikes ultimately proved sufficient.

Later, in an inconsequential pool A match, defending champions Air India were held to a 3-3 draw by Karnataka XI, who thus picked up only their second point in four matches.

Air India too packed up with just four points from as many games, two of which they lost.

Naveen Shekar (1st), Mudappa (16th and 47th) scored for Karnataka while Air India’s reply came from Bimal Lakra (33rd), Vinod Pillay (47th) and Ajmer Singh (68th, penalty stroke).

Army XI saw off some early resistance from Mumbai XI to win quite comfortably. Mumbai led 1-0 on a 20th minute goal by Tyron Pereira, but veteran Ignace Tirkey put Army on par in the 23rd before goals by Mundu (30th) and Rajesh Lakra (59th) sealed the issue.

Mumbai XI return home without a point to show for their efforts, having lost all their four league matches.