India see signs of trouble as Cameroon win dress rehearsal

The pace and slick passing troubled the home side constantly and Syed Rahim Nabi at left back,after getting a working over through the half by the pacy Eloundou Charles,got himself in a tangle with Cameroon’s No. 9,conceding a penalty.

Mercy strike

The goalscorer chose this time to show he’s got the smarts along with the skills,going for the ‘Paneka.’ Except that he was left with much cackleberry on the face,the weak lob descending meekly into the hands of the keeper who was by then on his knees. It was not the last of Cameroon’s misses. Gurwinder Singh’s last ditch interventions,two in the first half and uncountably many in the second,were all that stood between Cameroon and an embarrassingly one-sided win.

Even after India made a fist of it in the second half,Cameroon continued to fashion changes,none clearer than the one Makon Thierry missed late in the second half,with an open goal at his mercy. With India finishing the game with 34 per cent possession and just one shot on target,one will have to be as gracious as the visiting team’s coach to concede that maybe all of the hosts’ chopping and changing was a part of a larger scheme. After agreeing that the changed Indian line-up was ‘weak,’ and that he was ‘surprised’ by the way they played,as if ‘they did not want a win,’ Emmanuel Bosso said: “Maybe they have something big planned for the final.”