Bombay showed pretensions of poise and confidence. Riding on that wave of short-lived assurance, they even managed to pique Air-India's ego with an early goal. A penalty corner in the fourth minute, the lone one for Bombay in the first session, was driven into the goal by Robindro Okram. That was about all Bombay achieved in the match.

Although forwards Stanley Fernandez, Vijay Alphonso and Asad Khan showed a lot of poignancy in attacking with skipper Viren Rasquinha forming the link, their efforts could not penetrate the stoic defence, where Anurag Raghuvanshi was the doughtiest brick.

Supported by the surety in defence, Air-India began to combine with the customary cohesion upfront too. Deepak Thakur and Prabhjot Singh, easily two of the bestforwards in the tournament in terms of skills, speed and scoring ability, moved in tandem with Sanjeev Singh and Shakir Ali to strengthen their side's cause.

In the 25th minute, Deepak left Bombay medio Bikram Pillai stranded and darted down the middle to cause panic in the Bombay defence. Even as Bombay were trying to recoup from the lapse, Deepak had tapped the ball to Sanjeev on his right, received it back, pulled the rival goalkeeper Karan Bhasin out of his position and set up an unmarked Prabhjot on his left. All that Prabhjot had to do was to get his stick to the ball and he did it.

A minute before the interval, the duo got into the act again with Deepak winning a tackle on top of the striking circle and relaying it to Prabhjot who slotted home again.

Prabhjot's job of scoring was made that much easier on both the occasions by Deepak who had created a virtually unchallenged space between the goalposts for his colleague by faking and feigning Karan Basin out of his citadel.

The second session sawAir-India getting stronger. Prabhjot proved his play-making abilities, setting up Sanjeev to score his side's final goal. Bombay came up with a late flurry, like in the semifinal match, and forced four penalty corners during the last ten minutes, but skipper Inder Singh and Anurag in defence proved too sensible to let go of the advantage their team possessed.

In the encounter for the third place, Cyril Ekka struck the match winner for Bengal six minutes after Harmit Singh equalised for PSB. Stephen Kujur had put Bengal ahead in the 59th minute.

Individual prizes

Best goalkeeper: Bharath Chetri (Kar). Best defender: Bikramjit Singh (PSB). Best mid-fielder: Viren Rasquinha (Bom). Best forward: Deepak Thakur (AI). Player of the tournament: Prabhjot Singh (AI).