Railways do away with Rajasthan

Indian Railways set the day’s trend pounding the hapless Rajasthan 6-1 with a systematic grind. The Railwaymen slowly raised steam to leave the Northern State high and dry, known for the deserts rather than football.

As a warm up contest, Railways could not have had it better. Marcel Sladen set the tone past the quarter which mercifully ended with Soumen Dutta’s strike past the hour. Manjinder’s goal, was of the keepsake variety, the 40-yarder having the escort of agentle wind. Ravi helped himself to a brace and Subashish Chakroborthy netting the other. Not believing in flogging a dead horse, Railways closed shop a little earlier. Gurucharan Singh’s opportunism meant that it was not a total barren day for Rajasthan.

Andamans called the early shots and the urgency they showed must have given an early wake-up call to the opposition. Dydicus and Joseph struck an instant rapport which saw the former authoring the move for Joseph to execute the goal with nonchalant perfection.

It took some time for Chandigarh to recover from the fourth minute reverse. Two things were very prominent of Varinder Sharma — his beard and a cool head. Such was the flow of his passes that the troika of Rajiv Rattan, Vinay Kanwar and Rajesh Sharma hardly had any breathing time. Kanwar impressed with his ball sense and that he was not destined to get a goal must have been one of those things.

Andamans paid dearly for the faux pas of goalkeeper John Valient who did well to charge out and spoilRattan’s goalbound move but instinctly used his hand to parry the effort warranting referee Roy to flash the red. Down to ten near the half-hour, the pressure slowly crept on which stayed that way till the end.

Rattan out-thinked substitute goalkeeper Nepot for a high lob which nestled into the net to ensure that the honours remained intact at the half-way stage. Kanwar got into the act with a snap effort early in the second half. Rattan sealed the issue, of the ISI variety, walking away with the ball after circumambulating Nepot.

Bikalp sparkles in UP win

UDHAGAMANDALAM: It took sixty minutes for Bikalp Chaturvedi to blaze out of his shadows. With two uncanny goals, the Uttar Pradesh striker brought a fighting Jammu and Kashmir to their knees in a group Amatch here on Thursday, reports Ravi Menon.

The 2-1 win by UP was however marked by missed chances and half-hearted attempts. Bikalp nodded home the winner, after Deepak Kumar’s 78th minute goal cancelled off the former’s first goal thatearned UP a 1-0 lead.

For thefirst 15 minutes, the UP looked like a disorganised, misfiring machine. Jammu Kashmir’s ability to break up the rival movement and break forward quickly and in numbers looked far more threatening.

Services take on UP tomorrow.

Kerala, Assam fancied

COIMBATORE: The teams for the Coimbatore leg of the tourney which kicks off at the Nehru Stadium from Friday here are split into two clusters. Assam, Pondicherry and Sikkim constitute cluster G, while cluster B comprises of Kerala, Bihar and Nagaland.

The cluster winners will join National Games champions Maharashtra who are seeded directly into the quarter-final league.

Kerala have happy memories of the textile city as when the tournament was last held here seven years ago, they beat Goa in the final. On paper, Kerala and Assam appear the best and are expected to qualify for the quarter-final league by topping their respective clusters.

Kerala would be fielding a relatively youthful bunch as the seniors have optedout to make way for youngsters. Ignatius Sylvester and his brother Earnest will be the strikers hungry for goals. VP Shaji, an international who scored a treble in the Jabalpur Nationals, will be the team’s experienced man.