Chennai: Hosts Chennai Cheetahs made an incredible comeback in the final quarter as they beat Delhi Wizards 6-4 to keep their hopes of making it to the semi-finals alive.
Cheetahs now have 19 points from 13 matches and are on fourth spot. It was a fantastic game where Cheetahs trailing 1-3 came back to equalise and then pump in three more.
Wizards' Vikramjeet Singh struck thrice with identical drag-flick conversions.
The first goal came in the 11th minute of the first quarter before the Cheetahs equalised within three minutes.
It was a defensive lapse on part of Wizards defenders which gave Veeraswamy Raja space and time to execute a powerful angular shot that beat the opposition goalkeeper.
However in the 10th minute of the second quarter (27th of the match), Vikramjeet was brilliant once again as he scored his 10th goal of the tournament.
In the 33rd minute, Cheetahs nearly equalised when it looked like Gaurav Tokhi of the home team had guided a powerful hit into the Wizards goal but a referral showed that it had only touched Rajpal Singh's stick.
Vikramjeet made it 11 strikes in the tourney when he converted another in the 37th minute and also completed his hat-trick in the process.
However, former Pakistan international Syed Imran Warsi - who is currently the highest scorer in the tournament then converted a couple of short corners to level the proceedings.
The score in the third quarter was 3-3, but in the final quarter, it was Cheetahs all the way. First it was India discard Adam Sinclair who tapped home from close range in the 63rd minute to make it 4-3 and a minute later, veteran Vikram Pillay made it 5-3.
Sinclair scored one of the best goals of the tournament in the 66th minute when he latched on to a loose ball and sprinted down the middle and dribbled past goalkeeper Kamaldeep to make it 6-3.
Vikramjeet scored his fourth goal of the match, converting a short corner again to make it 4-6.
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