Knights win opening battle

PUNE, February 16: The new look Knights came up with some fine soccer as they ran past Wanoworie Sports Club 3-1, in the inaugural encounter...

PUNE, February 16: The new look Knights came up with some fine soccer as they ran past Wanoworie Sports Club 3-1, in the inaugural encounter of the XII Kishorilal Memorial Football encounter, at the Ghorpuri Military ground here today.

Shakhil Shaikh 18th, Nandu Mogre 24th and Lalchand 56th were the scorers for the winners while, Fayaz Sayyed converted a spot kick to reduce the margin for Karuna Krishnaswamy Memorial quarter-finalists Wanoworie Sports Club.

Knights, a set comprising players from Solapur Bazar in Camp, exhibited good soccer with their keeper Vishal Parkenti thwarthing a number of Wanoworie moves with his brilliant anticipation. Shakil Shaikh who notched up the first goal for them, in the 18th minute.

Six minutes later, Michael D8217;Cruz cut loose from three defenders with his big strides and floated the ball to the hard working Nandu whose volley doubled the lead. The Wanoworie striking force, Christy Peter, ran out of ideas in the striking zone. In the 28th minute he out paced twodefenders but could not beat the custodian Vishal who intercepted in the right time to avert any danger to the goal. With two goals up, Knights came up with two changes after the change of ends, Nandu making way for the Avinash Devdas and Buloo Swaminathan coming in for mid-fielder Vijay Manuel. This paid off for them as Avinash was quite threatening for the Wanoworie goal with his speed. However, Christy fed Lalchand whose right footer saw Daniel leave the ball through the gates for Knights to take a commendable 3-0 lead with 14 minutes to go for the final whistle.

Referee Amar Pardeshi who is yet to be ten yards from the ball marshalled the game from the centre line for most of the time.

In the 61st minute Vikram Waghry walked out of the field to quench his thirst without the knowledge of the officials. But the vigilant linesman J D Sandhu rightly brought it to the notice of the main referee who had no doubts in flashing the yellow card.

Today8217;s fixtures: SKf vs Railway Boys Ghorpuri 1.15 p.m;Jolly Boys Ghorpuri vs Armament boys 2.45 p.m; Elca Sports club vs Thundercatz 4.15 p.m.