Bengal Tigers’ goalkepper is mobbed by his teammates after the shootout win.
| Photo Credit: M. VEDHAN
In a nerve-wracking penalty shootout, Shrachi Rarh Bengal Tigers was 0.2 seconds from missing out on the Hockey India League (HIL) final when Florent van Aubel’s reverse flick in the sudden death barely beat the buzzer.
Then, goalkeeper Tim Cross thwarted Uttam Singh while Abhishek made no mistake with his penalty to take his team through with a 6-5 shootout victory over Tamil Nadu Dragons in the first semifinal at the Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium here on Friday.
In a stop-start game filled with multiple video referrals, Tigers dug deep and clawed back twice to force a 2-2 draw in regulation time, despite struggling in their strongest — suit – failing to convert from eight penalty corners. From a lightning counter-attack, Abhishek brilliantly set up Pardeep Singh Sandhu to score into an empty net and equalise right at the end of the first half to cancel out Nathan Ephraums’ opener.
Dragons needed less than two minutes from the restart to go ahead once again through Selvam Karthi and had the advantage with Tigers being a man down for 10 minutes. Colin Batch’s men fell back to close down the space while Dragons looked out of ideas to to make the most of the numerical advantage.
In the fourth quarter, Tigers made it pay when they pulled level again courtesy Sam Lane who flicked it past David Harte to take his side into the shootout.
Tigers will take on Hyderabad Toofans in the title-decider on Saturday after it thrashed Soorma Hockey Club 3-1 in the second semifinal.
There were no heroics from skipper Harmanpreet Singh and goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch to bail out Soorma as Toofans held their shape well and tore apart the opponent with their incisiveness and speed.
After a sedate start, Toofans took the lead through Amandeep Lakra who angled a bullet drag-flick into the middle of the right corner to put Toofans 1-0 up.
Soorma looked uninspiring in attack and from short corners, squandering 14 attempts against Toofans’ resolute penalty corner defence before Jeremy Hayward found the mark right at the death.
In the second half, Harmanpreet Singh’s long ball was cut out before Toofans blitzed through the middle, ending with Jacob Anderson sliding the ball home to double the lead. For the third, Nilakanta Sharma sounded the boards from another counterafter Arthur de Sloover pierced a long ball along the turf from his own circle.
The results: Bengal Tigers 2 (Pardeep Singh Sandhu 30, Sam Lane 53) drew with Tamil Nadu Dragons 2 (Nathan Ephraums 18, Selvam Karthi 32); Tigers won the shootout 6-5; Soorma 1 (Jeremy Hayward 60) lost to Hyderabad Toofans 3 (Amandeep Lakra 25, Jacob Anderson 35, Nilakanta Sharma 43).
Published – January 31, 2025 10:35 pm IST
