The 17th BSNl All India Hockey Tournament started on Wednesday at Astro-turf Hockey Stadium in Morhabadi with Karnataka winning the opening match against Odisha. Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited (BSNl) General Manager (Marketing) Ramashraya Prasad Singh said on the day that the company was committed to promote Hockey as National Game.
Former Olympian (Hockey), Major Dhyanchand Award winner last year and Chief Guest on the occasion Sylvanus Dungdung said that during inaugural session of tournament on the day that Hockey was in the heart of State. He said that though State government was doing many things to promote the game, it was falling way short in fulfilling its purposes.
“This is why I believe that efforts from other stakeholders like BSNl and others are extremely important so that the charm of Hockey remains at forefront in the State which remained producing international Hockey players in both Men’s and Women’s Hockey segments,” said Dungdung.
Four teams other than host Jharkhand will take on their competitors in respective matches till December 8 in knock-out rounds before the final match is being played on the same day. Singh said that Karnataka, Odisha, NTR and Jammu-Kashmir teams of BSNl came to play matches in Jharkhand after seven years. “We sent invitations to many other teams also, but they couldn’t participate due to various reasons,” said Singh.
BSNl Head Office GM (Administration) Sanjay Kumar Sinha, Jharkhand Circle Chief General Manager KK Thakur, Senior GM (Administration) Dhananjay Kumar, Hockey Jharkhand President Bholanath Singh and others were also present during inaugural session to enjoy the matches and cheer players.
Notably, Karnataka won both of its matches on first day with defeating Odisha with 3-1 and Jammu-Kashmir with 3-0, while Jharkhand knocked NTR (Delhi) out with three goals with opposite team making none. The Semi-Final matches will be played on Thursday and Final on Friday. All the matches are open for audience for free.