CHENNAI, July 28: Holders Indian Airlines were brought down to earth by the youthful Indian Juniors Eleven, inflicting an embarrassing 5-1 defeat on them in the MCC-Murguappa Gold Cup hockey tournament at the MRC stadium on Monday. The Juniors must be fancying their chances of making it to the final with four points from two matches.

For young Virender Singh, it turned out to be a big day, slamming in the first hat-trick of the tournament while making it four-in-a-row. The Haryana lad was just unstoppable once he tasted success. It is not everyday that one could beat the likes of Ashish Ballal so consistently.

Not that anything was amiss in the way Airlines went about their task. The big guns Mukesh Kumar, Brojen Singh and Atif Idris gave all they could. And there was no inkling of the shape of things to come when the teams crossed over with the Juniors enjoying a thin 1-0 lead. Samir Dad made the most of a screaming Rawat cross in the 11th minute.

But in a space of 12 minutes, Virender changed the complexion of the match, repeatedly punching holes in the IA defence in a phase which is sure to be ensconced in his mind for a very long time.

He started it all with a gentle scoop going for the angle. That 11th minute effort was followed by a penalty stroke conversion two minutes later. The award came when Rawat was brought down by a cluster of defenders inside the dee.

The hat-trick came a little longer, Baljit Singh Saini authoring the move from the rear and Rawat playing the middleman role. Virender made it all look simple with a neat drive. And the fourth came promptly, a high scoop over Ballal from a comforting angle looked too good to be missed.

In between, IA pulled one back after the damage of four goals, Altaf-ur-Rehman making capital use of a Mukesh Kumar cross TN, PSB IN GOALLESS DRAW: Later, Tamil Nadu Eleven and Punjab & Sind Bank played goalless to do their cause no good in a contest which had its highs and lows as far as quality of the fare.

Having been in the receiving end for the best part of the first half, TN bunch came back strongly to push the bankmen in the defensive. There were any number of skirmishes at the bank end in the last quarter. That turned out to be an agonising phase for the local outfit as some of the misses from the close-in range were of the unbelievable range.

Mohd Riaz was the fulcrum on whom the TN attack revolved and the pivot was all over there; just about doing everything to keep the attack going. Paul Kirubakaran and Prabakaran combined well using the short passes judiciously and mixing it well with the carpeted drives. Late in the first half, a Riaz through to Kirubakaran spelt danger but the latter made a hash of it, his anguish palpable after messing up the angle.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.