KARACHI Defending champions PIA resurrected their title hopes when they scored emphatic 7-2 victory over PAF in the NBP 57th National Hockey Championship here Monday at Hockey Club of Pakistan. The victory has brought title holders at par on points table with fifteen points with other two serious challengers NBP and Wapda. All the three teams have so far played six matches out of maximum nine matches that each of the 10 team are to play in the championship. PIA scored their goals through Kashif Ali and Muhammad Zubair who evenly shared six goals. Inyatullah scored the seventh goal for the airlines. PAF had ample chances to score more than just two they recorded. But weak finishing inside the circle denied them the opportunity. Losing margin does not truly reflect the performance the airmen. They played superbly up in front and mounted several attacks on PIA circle. With better finishing they could have scored at least three more goals. However, late in the second session they could not put up better defence that resulted in three goals against them. Barkat Ali and Zeshan netted for the airmen. Earlier in the opening match of the day, Habib Bank defeated Sui Southern gas 3-1 which saw one of the SSGC player Muhammad Javaid swinging his hockey stick dangerously at umpire Haider Rasool who was lucky to escape head injuries. The umpire still suffered injury in the hand when the second swing hit him. As Haider Rasool was injured, he could not continue the match and was replaced by reserve umpire Zulfiqar Hussain. The tournament director on the initial report of the field jury and other technical officials banned Muhammad Javiad from the championship. He had recommended the PHF to take further action against the player and decided to report the incident to the SSGC which would be independent to take any action they felt fit against the player. The incident happened in the 10th minute of the play when an irate Javaid suddenly lost his cool and suddenly went for the umpire with his stick. Habib Bank scored through Rana Zubair, Adeel Hussain and Rizwan Khan to record its fourth victory in five matches. Abbas Haider clinched lone goal for SSGC. Port Qasim slammed KESC 6-2 in the third match of the day with former international recording a hat trick, second of the championship. He scored four goals in a row in 33rd,50th,62th and 69th. Muhammad Imran(2nd minute) and Manzoor Ahmed(4th minute) were other scorers. KESC netted its goals through Aleem Bilal(20th) and Salman Khan (38th). Points table at the end of 6 league round matches. Read under, team, matches played, won, lost, draw, goals for, goal against points. NBP 6-5-1-0-30-14-15. PIA 6-5-0-1-26-8-15 Wapda 6-5-1-0-23-10-15 HBL 6-4-2-0-12-6-12 Port Qasim 6-3-3-0-16-8-9 SSGC 6-3-3-0-16-12-9 Army 6-2-3-1-13-12-7 Navy 6-1-5-0-14-24-3 KESC 6-1-5-0-16-35-3 PAF 6-0-6-0-8-33-0 Matches for Tuesday. KESC v Pakistan Navy. PIA v Wapda NBP v Army