Rourkela: Jugraj Singh had gone to the Paris Olympics and stayed among the reserves for the Indian team. That meant even as India won their second-successive Olympic bronze, he came back without a medal. It was heartbreaking, to say the least, but he showed what he is capable of as he scored a hat-trick in the final of the Hockey India League and helped Shrachi Rarh Bengal Tigers beat Hyderabad Toofans 4-3 at Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium here on Saturday.
Thanks to his treble, he also finished the tournament as the highest scorer of this edition of HIL with 12 goals. Meanwhile, Sam Lane scored the winner for the Bengal Tigers in the 54th minute – also from a PC – after the match was locked at 3-3 at the end of the third quarter.
Jugraj had said earlier in the tournament that he had been working on his angles and also watching videos of Belgian drag-flicker Alexander Hendrickx to better his performance from the PCs.
Moreover, former India drag-flicker and Bengal Tigers captain Rupinder Pal Singh had been speaking to him and guiding him on the field.
“As a senior, I aimed to keep him on the right track on the field when he is taking the penalty corners and when he is playing as a defender on the field,” Rupinder had said during a press conference. “I kept telling him, it shouldn’t be like if you are scoring from PCs, you are performing well and if you aren’t scoring goals, you aren’t performing well as a defender.”
All this has worked wonders for Jugraj as he scored three goals on Saturday night in front of a packed stadium. Each of them was better than the last as he pulled them off under pressure.
It now remains to be seen whether he can take this forward and keep up his performance even for the Indian team in the coming days.
However, the night didn’t begin well for the Tigers as Gonzalo Peillat put the Toofans in the lead as early as the ninth minute after they won their first PC of the match. But Jugaj equalised for the Tigers through a PC 10 minutes into the second quarter.
Amandeep Lakra almost immediately got Toofans back in the lead when he converted another PC. The youngster has been in fine form and scored his fifth goal of the tournament and celebrated with Cristiano Ronaldo’s famous ‘Siu’.
But Jugraj was on fire on the field and he scored two back-to-back goals in the 32nd and 35th minutes – both from the penalty corners to put the Bengal Tigers in the lead for the first time in the night.
But the Toofans weren’t going down without a fight and Peillat brought them back in the game with another PC conversion in the 39th minute. As the game looked to be going into the shoot-outs, Lane put the ball into the bottom-right corner and helped the Tigers grab a 4-3 win on the night.
Earlier in the day, Soorma Hockey Club beat Tamil Nadu Dragons 3-2 to finish third in the league. Gurjant Singh (12′), Harjeet Singh (19′) and Prabjhot Singh (57′) scored for Soorma while Blake Govers (15′) and Jip Janssen (59′) sounded the board for the Dragons.