Goodwill, Friends Union begin well

With the day being hounded by one sided affairs, Goodwill fresh from their triumph in the Dr Erin Nagarwala tournament dominated right from the word go. With seven minutes logged on the clock and no noteworthy move emanating from either side which was owing to the `natural’ playing surface, Goodwill broke the deadlock when a combined effort by Ajay Shirke and Gunashekhar Tambi paid off in a goal with the latter tucking home.

The game thereafter settled into an listless fare with the players from either team focusing more on getting acclimatised with the ground rather than pushing hard to score.

However, Goodwill in a break-away on the right flank made it 2-0 when Shekhar Parmanand evading 512 ABW’s defenders S Ghadge and S L Jadhav drove well below the legs of custodian N T Kale who was `too quick’ in going for clearance.

Changing ends, 152 ABW were defenders all through the half. A minute after resumption Goodwill’s Ajay Shirke-Gunashekhar did well to make ground way into their opponents `D’ but had the former miss the push with the odd bounce which the ground offered with just the custodian up-front.

Goodwill made it 3-0 in the 34th minute. Medio Sikander Jaffer playing a through ball to Shekhar inside the circle had the custodian leave charge and temporarily thwart Shekhar’s charge but offer a rebound to the converging Gunashekhar who tapped ino the empty goal.

The 512 ABW defence of A D Mhsake, D B Pawar Ghadge were joined in by medios M Anthony and Ravi Ugade as a desperate bid to arrest Godwill’s run, but failed miserably. Goodwill scored their fourth when Rocky Anthony’s crack on goal from the edge of the circle slowed in its approach, allowing Ajay to knock home a sitter.

Thereafter, Rocky (50th) made it 5-0, while Kiran Khairale (58th) converted a stroke awarded by umpire S S Thapa when he pulled up the 512 ABW custodian for squatting on the ball, to round up the tally.

In the other encounter, Friends Union rode on the brace of Vishal Megharathi (10th & 24th minutes) to knock out Joseph’s Pride, with Sagar Kadam (38th) and Kamlesh Rajan (40th) completing the tally for the losers.For Joseph’s Shabir Sheikh (11th) equalised scores initially, and later pulled another back when Dawood Gadiyali scored two minutes from time.