Hosts Lucknow to take on Varanasi in hockey final

LUCKNOW: Hosts Lucknow and Varanasi stormed into the final of the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Senior State boys hockey tournament, scoring contrasting wins, at the Padamshree Mohd Shahid Hockey stadium here on Friday.

Lucknow crushed Bareilly 7-0 after leading by 3-0 in the second semi-final, whereas Varanasi had to struggle hard before scripting 3-2 win in tie-breaker in the first semi-final of the day.

Raj Kumar Pal and Faiz shared four goals between them, whereas Gopi Sonkar, Abid and Vijay Yadav scored a goal each in Lucknow’s win. In the first match, it was forward Pawan Kumar, who put the side into lead with a field goal in the sixth minute (1-0), but within minutes Ashish Kumar shot back the equalizer for Varanasi in the 19th minute. The final starts at 1.30 p.m. on Saturday.

MIRZA SOCCER

Contrasting wins marked the day in the Qaiser Mirza Memorial football tournament, at the Chowk stadium here on Friday. LU Club beat Star Eleven by 2-0, Golden Boys beat Shiv Football Academy by a solitary goal, whereas DAV Club stunned Sports College 5-4 in tie-breaker after the two teams remained goalless at the end of the regulation time.

Mohit Singh scored both the goals for LU Club, whereas Suraj struck the all-important for Golden Boys.

CHOUDHARY CRICKET

Dhruv Cricket Academy scored a thumping 101-run win against REPL Crusaders to collect full points in the PD Choudhary Memorial cricket tournament here on Friday.

BRIEF SCORES

Dhruv Cricket Academy 227 for 6 in 40 overs (Shivansh Kapoor 106*, Anchit Shukla 32, Abhishek Sharma 2 for 47, Aman Upadhyay 2 for 49) beat REPL Crusaders 126 in 26.2 overs

(Ashutosh Singh 52, Aman Upadhyay 27, Milan Yadav 4 for 30, Vivek Yadav 2 for 20).

NISHESH SHINES

A five-wicket haul by Nishesh Singh helped UP Timber Club beat Multi Cricket Academy ‘Blue’ by 10 wickets in a league match of the Under-16 cricket tournament, at the Christian College here.

BRIEF SCORES

Multy Cricket Academy

‘Blue’ 19 in 12.4 overs (Nishesh Singh 5 for 2, Tanishq Verma 3 for 0, Parash Mishra 2 for 2) lost to UP Timber Club 20 for no loss in two overs.

APPOINTED

Ex-Strong Man of India Shatrughan Lal was on Friday nominated as secretary of the Lucknow Powerlifting Association. Satish Dixit, another international lifter, was named president.

FINE SHOW

Uttar Pradesh girls stormed into the semi-finals of the cadet girls team championship at the 79th Sub-Junior and Cadets InterState National Table Tennis Championship at Goa on Friday, defeating Haryana 3-2.